Jonathan S. Jones's "Opium Slavery"

Jonathan S. Jones, an assistant professor of history at James Madison University, is a historian of the United States Civil War and Reconstruction era (1820-1920) as well as American medicine and health.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis, and reported the following:

Page 99 presents evidence that the Civil War contributed significantly to the spread of opiate addiciton in the 19th century United States. This page presents evidence that the contemprary Americans blamed a surge in addiction on the war, while also noting that many Americans used drugs for a variety of reasons that were not connected to the lingering affects of war.

The Page 99 Test works moderately well for Opium Slavery. It gets at half the argument—that the Civil War caused an epidemic of opiate addiction among veterans. However, the other takeaways from the book—how addiction negatively affected veterans, what they did about it, and the epidemic’s lasting significance—are missing here. Perhaps that’s unsurprising, considering the multifaceted nature of America’s first opioid crisis. But certainly, the Page 99 Test gives a good snapshot of the book.

Opium Slavery is the first comprehensive history of the Civil War’s opioid epidemic. Schlolars and other interested folks, like medical doctors, have long been aware that some Civil War veterans used drugs. But we’ve never been able to guage the scope of addiction, let alone its lived experience or consequences. By reconstructing this history, we get the most detailed portrait of 19th-century drug users to date and a tragic view of the Civil War’s unexpected legacies.

Visit Jonathan S. Jones's website.

--Marshal Zeringue