The Cigarette Century
The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Once so acceptable that even Emily Post approved, cigarette smoking is an integral part of American history and culture, as demonstrated in this highly readable, exhaustively researched book: the cigarette's remarkable success... as well as its ignominious demise... fundamentally demonstrates the historical interplay of culture, biology, and disease. Brandt, Harvard Medical School's Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine, explores the impact and meaning of cigarettes from cultural, scientific, political and legal standpoints. Particularly fascinating (and shocking) is the scientific community's struggle to prove the harmful effects of smoking, even as scientists found, in 1946, that lung cancer cases had tripled over the previous three decades. As any contemporary history of tobacco must, the narrative becomes a tale of the lies, deceit and eventual public exposure of Big Tobacco. But, the author warns, it's too soon for the ever-growing antismoking contingent to think they've beaten the industry: Big Tobacco is busy selling cigarettes to developing countries, threatening a global pandemic of tobacco-related diseases that is nothing short of colossal. Though the industry can't be stopped, Brandt says, understanding the history of cigarettes may be a small but important element in know their dangers and hav strategies for their control ; fortunately, this rigorous history has that first step covered.
