A Creature Void of Form: Heroin, Popular Culture, and American Life in Three Twentieth Century Periods

Heroin has had a titanic influence on American culture, life, and history. From the labs of twentieth century Europe the drug made its way to the United States, where it found true purchase. Despite the passing of numerous laws banning its use throughout the past century it made its way to nearly every era of American cultural history. Its use was an open secret and seen as a boon in the world of mid-century jazz music, where some of the greatest talents in American music fought and died with its use. In Vietnam American troops found an abundance of the drug in its purest form, while at the same time millions of Americans protested that very war and coincidentally took some of the same drugs, and heroin to came to define the memories and history of the Vietnam War. Artists and creatives of many stripes have long been predisposed to substance abuse, and in twentieth century America the drug of choice for many doomed creators was heroin. The literature of the beats, the music of the counterculture and punks alike were altered by its presence, and in the opiate crisis of recent decades we continue to wrestle with heroin and its implications. Indeed, the study of recent American history and culture, is the study of opiates, and of heroin.