Peter D. Kramer, a practicing psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Brown University, is the author of the international bestseller Listening to Prozac: A Psychiatrist Explores Mood-altering Drugs and the Meaning of the Self. The book was a catalyst for rethinking antidepressants and for looking at our culture, in which their use is so prevalent. In Against Depression, Kramer writes fiercely against the tradition of depression as the "heroic melancholy" and in support of the latest medical findings that indicate that depression is a disease with far-reaching health effects.