The Urge: our history of addiction

Humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behaviour for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine. The Urge is a rich, sweeping history that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and sociology, illuminating the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another.