Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-aging Miracles, and a Hercules in Every High School: The Secret History of America's True Drug Addiction - Hardcover

Assael, Shaun

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1933060379 ISBN 13: 9781933060378

Publisher: ESPN, 2007

Synopsis

When science lets us fulfill our greatest desires, where do we stop? Should Barry Bonds’s startling achievements be listed in the record book with an asterisk because he has been accused of using steroids? Did performance-enhancing drugs play a role in Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories? And what does Arnold Schwarzenegger’s continued success say about the appeal of his steroid-fueled bodybuilding persona?In the tradition of And the Band Played On, award-winning journalist Shaun Assael looks at America’s complicated love affair with steroids and how it has grown into the country’s—and perhaps the world’s—most insidious drug addiction.

Steroid Nation presents a chilling portrait of a nation enamored of artificially pumped-up success. Chronicling steroid use far beyond the headlines, it begins with the bodybuilders of Venice Beach in the 1970s and continues through to the NFL’s Raiders of the ’80s and ’90s and the baseball scandals of today. Assael also reveals the dramatic story of the godfather of the steroid movement: Dan Duchaine, who wrote The Original Underground Steroid Handbook in 1981.

Part detective story, part medical investigation, and part sociological examination, Steroid Nation is a groundbreaking work on the most compelling story in the sports world today.

About this title

About the Author:

Shaun Assael is anaward-winning investigative writer with ESPN The Magazine and the ESPN expert on steroids. He has also written two books: achronicle of the 1996 NASCAR season called Wide Open, and an unauthorized biography of the WWE's Vince McMahon, "Sex, Lies& Headlocks," a New York Times bestseller.

Review:

"In Steroid Nation, Shaun Assael skillfully tracks the course of the steroid epidemic that has swept through American sports. His portrait of pioneering steroid guru Dan Duchaine, who did so much to popularize performance-enhancing drugs, is compelling and disturbing." --Lance Williams, co-author, Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroid Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports -- Lance Williams, co-author

"Shaun Assael's Steroid Nation documents the rise of muscle culture in much the same way that Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On chronicled the spread of AIDS. This marvelously reported narrative takes the reader from seedy California gyms to Capitol Hill, from high school locker rooms to major league clubhouses. Finally, Assael demonstrates the price Americans have paid for getting so big." --Mark Kriegel, author of Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich and Namath: A Biography -- Mark Kriegel

"This story doesnÕt just take place in the professional baseball stadiums of America, it takes place on the playgrounds of every town in the United States. ÊSteroid Nation tells us how steroids have become our countryÕs drug and offers some important solutions for the future." --Barry McCaffrey, former Director, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy -- Barry McCaffrey

"With Steroid Nation, Shaun Assael has brilliantly anatomized the American obsession with performance -- and physique -- enhancing drugs. If you are interested in the truth about todayÕs sports world -- the unvarnished but juiced-up, muscle-bound truth -- Steroid Nation is required reading." --Jeremy Schaap, author of Cinderella Man: James J.Braddock, Max Baer and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History and Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics -- Steroid Nation

About this edition

• Publisher: ESPN
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1933060379
• ISBN 13: 9781933060378
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368