A revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley.
Breen presents a tantalizing hypothetical, one that would have had an inestimable impact on culture, medicine and perhaps the whole of civilization had it come to pass: What if, in the mid-1950s, Margaret Mead had publicly endorsed psychedelics? ... Convincing ... Exhaustively researched; Mead alone was dauntingly prolific, and the book’s ambitious scope extends well beyond her abundant archive ... Breen is an engaging writer invigorated by his topic, and to synthesize so much information is an accomplishment.
Breen handles his complex and frequently bizarre material with skill and sobriety. He marshals a convincing mass of circumstantial evidence as well as documentary fragments that survived the destruction of MK-Ultra records.
