The Cigarette: A Political History
English
By (author): Sarah Milov
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 Milovs 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 Americas economy and shaped some of its most enduring myths. The story of tobaccos rise and fall may seem simple enougha tale of science triumphing over corporate greedbut 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 tobaccos 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 spadeworkA 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