PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes—mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product—with such sweep and enlivening detail. "A great battleship of a book—formidable, majestic.”—The New York Times Book Review Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process—financial, social, psychological, medical, political, and legal—are woven together in a riveting narrative. The key characters are the top corporate executives, public health investigators, and antismoking activists who have clashed ever more stridently as Americans debate whether smoking should be closely regulated as a major health menace. We see tobacco spread rapidly from its aboriginal sources in the New World 500 years ago, as it becomes increasingly viewed by some as sinful and some as alluring, and by government as a windfall source of tax revenue. With the arrival of the cigarette in the late-nineteenth century, smoking changes from a luxury and occasional pastime to an everyday—to some, indispensable—habit, aided markedly by the exuberance of the tobacco huskers. This free-enterprise success saga grows shadowed, from the middle of this century, as science begins to understand the cigarette's toxicity. Ironically the more detailed and persuasive the findings by medical investigators, the more cigarette makers prosper by seeming to modify their product with filters and reduced dosages of tar and nicotine. We see the tobacco manufacturers come under intensifying assault as a rogue industry for knowingly and callously plying their hazardous wares while insisting that the health charges against them (a) remain unproven, and (b) are universally understood, so smokers indulge at their own risk. Among the eye-opening disclosures here: outrageous pseudo-scientific claims made for cigarettes throughout the '30s and '40s, and the story of how the tobacco industry and the National Cancer Institute spent millions to develop a "safer" cigarette that was never brought to market. Dealing with an emotional subject that has generated more heat than light, this book is a dispassionate tour de force that examines the nature of the companies' culpability, the complicity of society as a whole, and the shaky moral ground claimed by smokers who are now demanding recompense.

Future historians will wonder why, despite the risks, society persisted in its warm relationship with the cigarette; by the end of the century global consumption was still rising. The 1995 symposium at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine not only examined tobacco's connection with health, but the varied attitudes towards smoking, which have included regarding it as 'manly', relaxing, fashionable - and decadent. A particular feature was a witness seminar attended not only by those who had made the initial discovery but by those with a crucial role in promoting public awareness of the dangers. And, as shown in this book, we still cannot escape the paradox that, while a considerable proportion of a country's population is hooked on the cigarette, the tobacco industry and the government are equally addicted to the profits and tax revenues it generates.

Ashlee Chadwick Davenport has been a widow for only a month when she finds disturbing evidence suggesting that her husband Jack--pillar of the community, church deacon, principled businessman--might have been much less honorable than he seemed. There are recordings of anonymous phone calls alleging Jack was involved in unsavory business transactions. Records of shady land deals. And she finds letters that hint at even darker dealings. Worse, from an emotional standpoint, Ashe discovers racy photos of her deceased husband with her best friend. She feels as if her marriage and her life have been ripped away from her. Her whole existence has been built on lies. All she has left is her daughter and the farm that has been in her family for generations. Then, suddenly, even those things are threatened. Jack's death has left her holding something that someone wants very badly. And they'll do anything to get it. Ashe must draw on her ever-growing anger to find the strength to fight Jack's final legacy: an unknown, unseen enemy.

The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization. It is also one of the most beguiling, thanks to more than a century of manipulation at the hands of tobacco industry chemists. In Golden Holocaust, Robert N. Proctor draws on reams of formerly-secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely-used drug on the planet, with six trillion sticks sold per year. He paints a harrowing picture of tobacco manufacturers conspiring to block the recognition of tobacco-cancer hazards, even as they ensnare legions of scientists and politicians in a web of denial. Proctor tells heretofore untold stories of fraud and subterfuge, and he makes the strongest case to date for a simple yet ambitious remedy: a ban on the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.

This book comprehensively covers the science and policy issues relevant to one of the major public health disasters of modern times. It pulls together the aetiology and burden of the myriad of tobacco related diseases with the successes and failures of tobacco control policies. The book looks at lessons learnt to help set health policy for reducing the burden of tobacco related diseases. The book also deals with the international public health policy issues which bear on control of the problem of tobacco use and which vary between continents. The editors are an international group distinguished in the field of tobacco related diseases, epidemiology, and tobacco control. The contributors are world experts drawn from the various clinical fields. This major reference text gives a unique overview of one of the major public health problems in both the developed and developing world. The book is directed at an international public health and epidemiology audience includng health economists and those interested in tobacco control.

Future historians will wonder why, despite the risks, society persisted in its warm relationship with the cigarette; by the end of the century global consumption was still rising. The 1995 symposium at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine not only examined tobacco's connection with health, but the varied attitudes towards smoking, which have included regarding it as ‘manly', relaxing, fashionable - and decadent. A particular feature was a witness seminar attended not only by those who had made the initial discovery but by those with a crucial role in promoting public awareness of the dangers. And, as shown in this book, we still cannot escape the paradox that, while a considerable proportion of a country's population is hooked on the cigarette, the tobacco industry and the government are equally addicted to the profits and tax revenues it generates.

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize Winner of the PROSE Award in United States History Hagley Prize in Business History Finalist A Smithsonian Best History Book of the Year “Vaping gets all the attention now, but Milov’s thorough study reminds us that smoking has always intersected with the government, for better or worse.” —New York Times Book Review From Jamestown to the Marlboro Man, tobacco has powered America’s economy and shaped some of its most enduring myths. The story of tobacco’s rise and fall may seem simple enough—a tale of science triumphing over corporate greed—but the truth is more complicated. After the Great Depression, government officials and tobacco farmers worked hand in hand to ensure that regulation was used to promote tobacco rather than protect consumers. As evidence of the connection between cigarettes and cancer grew, scientists struggled to secure federal regulation in the name of public health. What turned the tide, Sarah Milov reveals, was a new kind of politics: a movement for nonsmokers’ rights. Activists took to the courts, the streets, city councils, and boardrooms to argue for smoke-free workplaces and allied with scientists to lobby elected officials. The Cigarette puts politics back at the heart of tobacco’s rise and fall, dramatizing the battles over corporate influence, individual choice, government regulation, and science. “A nuanced and ultimately devastating indictment of government complicity with the worst excesses of American capitalism.” —New Republic “An impressive work of scholarship evincing years of spadework...A well-told story.” —Wall Street Journal “If you want to know what the smoke-filled rooms of midcentury America were really like, this is the book to read.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

From the author of The Spirits of America, an energetic history of tobacco use.

A truthful and learned treasury of musings on the miracle drug.Beryl...

The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately shaped the evolution of evidence-based medicine. In response, the tobacco industry engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress these studies. Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, historian Allan Brandt shows how the industry pioneered these campaigns, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption has fallen dramatically in the U.S., Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into new global markets. The implications for the future are vast: 100 million people died of smoking-related diseases in the 20th century; in the next 100 years, we expect 1 billion deaths worldwide.