What are the implications of an intoxicated army? Today’s guest, Adam Zientek, is a historian whose book on the French army’s use of wine during World War I begs answers to new questions about what it means for a government to chemically modify the behavior of its fighting force.

Bio: Adam Zientek is a historian of modern Europe with a focus on France. He is interested in the social history of war, airpower, the history of military medicine and psychiatry, and the history of alcohol and drugs. Adam's research focuses on the experience of trench-fighting in the First World War — how soldiers mitigated the psychological pressures of fighting by analyzing soldiers’ daily practices and rituals. 

Publications: 

• Zientek, A. (2024) A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of French Soldiers on the Western Front (Montreal: McGill Queen's University Press: 2024).
• Zientek, A. (2023) "Energizing munitions for the body: The French army's alcohol policy on the Western Front during the Great War," Journal of Modern History 95, 1 (March 2023).
• Zientek, A. (2014) “Affective neuroscience and the causes of the mutiny of the French 82nd Infantry Brigade,” Contemporary European History 23, 3, pp. 505-22.