‘Of all civilisation’s occupational categories, that of soldier may be the most conducive to regular drug use.’
The problem with this statement — the first words of this book — is the problem with the book as a whole: it may be correct, and there again it may not be. Even the captionless cover photograph is ambiguous: of an American soldier, in Vietnam perhaps, with a corncob pipe which may or may not contain a banned substance, though we are obviously meant to infer that it does.
Then there is the inconclusiveness: ‘One may say that to a lesser or greater degree drugs shaped warfare.’ Yes, one may; but to a lesser or greater degree one may say that about almost everything.
Historians have dedicated little or no attention to the use of psychoactive substances by combatants, armies, and states, since not only was the topic rather inconvenient but it was also rather taboo.
Again, why the hedging? Is it ‘little’ or is it ‘no’? The book’s extensive bibliography suggests it isn’t ‘no’, but if drugs shaped warfare only to a lesser degree, might historians have been justified in dedicating little attention to it?
And so much of Lukasz Kamienski’s history is speculative, vague and inconsistent.
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