When I have a writing deadline approaching, you'll probably find me in the kitchen. It's horrible, I know, but when I work with a deadline, I tend...
Continue »
The definitive history of the cigarette, the product that shaped twentieth-century America — from modern advertising to science, from regulatory politics to our sense of glamour and style.
The industrial manufacture of cigarettes began in the late nineteenth century, but it wasn't until the invention of the modern consumer, advertising campaign — pioneered by cigarette brands — that the product really took off at the turn of the century. The cigarette became an indispensable accessory of glamour and sex appeal: from Marlene Dietrich to Humphrey Bogart to Anne Bancroft, we have imagined stars with cigarettes in their mouths, and imitated them.
The cigarette — the ultimate icon of our consumer culture — serves as a vehicle for historian Allan Brandt to explore critical aspects of American life. From agriculture to big business, from medicine to politics, The Cigarette Century shows how smoking came to be so deeply implicated in our culture, science, policy, and law. In this magisterial book, Brandt demonstrates how the cigarette reflects the most powerful debates of our time about risk, responsibility, and human health. The Cigarette Century reaches across many disciplines to form a broad and compelling synthesis, showing how one humble (and largely useless) product came to play such a dominant role in our lives and deaths.
Review:
"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, Havard 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 anti-smoking 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 ... knowing their dangers and having strategies for their control'; fortunately, this rigorous history has that first step covered." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Recent years have seen a flurry of what might be called 'inanimate' biographies — that is, books devoted to the life of a thing rather than a person. Salt got one, cod, too, even some naughty words. While I admire the scholarship that goes into these studies, they tend to leave me a bit flat. I mean, it's the rare cod that battled the Boers alongside Winston Churchill or ate fried eggs off Ava Gardner's... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) chest. And while I love a heaping spoon of Morton's as much as the next guy, no matter how you shake it, salt will simply never own up to losing its virginity to the upstairs maid. By their very nature, these books can come off as bloodless digests of minutiae. Given a choice between Kitty Kelley's latest and 'A Brief History of the Booger,' I'd hold my nose and pick the Kelley. You'd have to. Next up: the cigarette. In 'The Cigarette Century,' Allan M. Brandt, a Harvard Medical School professor with a very long and impressive job title, does a nice job of putting Kools and Salems on the couch. The tobacco industry has become well-worn territory for authors and journalists, but Brandt, an expert witness in a number of anti-tobacco lawsuits, enlivens a familiar story by scanning with the widest possible lens, easily unbundling and reassembling the narrative threads of the cigarette's rise and mid-career flameout. It's all here: the Marlboro Man's drug-fueled orgies with Ravi Shankar, Joe Camel slapping Elizabeth Taylor that night at the Palm. OK, OK, I made those up. The book actually doesn't go anywhere near Elizabeth Taylor, which is too bad, but Brandt manages to weave all the diverse elements of the cigarette's history — medical research, advertising, lawsuits, public relations, corporate intrigue — into a surprisingly unified narrative. It's a good story, well told. Because mapping the crucial life passages of your workaday cod requires the unique analytical insights that only Gail Sheehy can boast, most inanimate biographies score or flop on their success at delivering two things: memorable minor characters — the president who downed 17 cod every morning for breakfast, the sultan who built an empire on salt — and especially the 'Honey-you've-got-to-read-this' detail. In my experience, you need at least one of these forehead-slapping factoids every five pages to keep the cod-curious reader interested. By and large, Brandt rates an A-minus on the detail, maybe a C-plus on the minor characters. His people, from the turn-of-the-century tobacco monopolist Buck Duke to the latter-day apologists who sweat before Mike Wallace, could use more flesh on their bones. The modern cigarette, Brandt reminds us, was born in the late 19th century but for the longest time remained the industry's neglected stepchild. Chewing tobacco (also known by its technical name, God This Stuff Is Gross) and even pipe tobacco sold better. Hand-rolled cigarettes cost too much to make and sold for too little to justify greater investment. Besides, the dowdy matrons bustling around the country decrying the use of alcohol tended to moonlight at decrying cigarettes as tiny engines of filth, sexual depravity and downward mobility. All in all, the death merchants of yore judged cigarettes more trouble than they were worth. But then came rolling machines. For the first time, cigarettes could be made for pennies apiece, and at that point no one much cared about the naysayers — the 'antis,' as they're called today. (Did you know that 16 states briefly outlawed cigarettes in the 1920s? Liar.) In the 1910s, Big Tobacco all but created national advertising to peddle Lucky Strikes and other brands. Still, cigarette use didn't catch fire until — bing! memorable detail! — World War I, when American soldiers found a cheap smoke the perfect way to unwind after a tough day in the trenches. Doughboys so craved cigarettes that — bing bing bing! — the YMCA handed them out for free. By the Great Depression, an avalanche of ad campaigns had transformed the cigarette into an easily recognized symbol of both male virility and female liberation. The rest, as they say, is cancer. The golden age of the cigarette during the 1930s and '40s — think Humphrey Bogart in 'Casablanca,' Lauren Bacall in anything — was followed in short order by the downbeat news that rates of lung cancer, a heretofore all-but-unknown malady, were skyrocketing. Here Brandt confronts the elephant in his narrative kitchen. The outrage many Americans felt during the 1990s, when internal industry documents exposed Big Tobacco's Machiavellian strategies to subvert the science of lung cancer, is no longer fresh. If Brandt can't make the reader feel that outrage again, he's headed to the showers. Well, he does it. Big time. I defy anyone to read the middle chapters of 'The Cigarette Century,' the ones that detail the foundation of the Tobacco Institute and the industry's efforts to muddy scientific waters, and not come away with a burning need to drive down to North Carolina and find someone to throttle. Or Madison Avenue. Among the many villains Brandt skillfully waterboards are executives at the public relations giant Hill & Knowlton, which during the 1950s single-handedly orchestrated Big Tobacco's campaign to undermine anti-smoking advocates and scientists up to and including the surgeon general. No lie was too big to tell, no bit of pseudo-science too ridiculous to pass off as legitimate. Parents, if you have teenagers considering a career in p.r., have them read this first. I can't remember the last time I read a more scathing indictment of corporate malfeasance. One thing that surprised me about 'The Cigarette Century' is how well it's written, given that the author is, well, a college professor. Whether he's describing laboratory work or the intricacies of a lawsuit, Brandt seldom lets the story drag; he has a fine sense of what detail to use and when to stop using it. The worst that can be said is that the book feels 'textbooky' in spots, which is probably to be expected given that Brandt is a Harvard lecturer and not Christopher Buckley. 'The Cigarette Century'isn't exactly beach reading, but for anyone interested in tobacco, public relations, medicine or law, I promise you won't miss Ravi Shankar. Well, maybe a little. Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of four books, including 'Barbarians at the Gate.'" Reviewed by Bryan Burrough, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)
Review:
"While my attention to smoking had flagged, historian Allan M. Brandt had remained vigilant from his vantage point at Harvard University....I figured I would never consume another thick tome about the tobacco history. I calculated incorrectly, and after reading Mr. Brandt's book, am pleased I did." Dallas Morning News
Review:
"Grist for an anti-smoking campaigner's mill, and testimony to the banality of evil." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"Brandt reminds us that this battle is far from over, as Big Tobacco sets its sights on developing nations, threatening to create a deadly pandemic of global proportion." Booklist
From agriculture to big business, from medicine to politics, The Cigarette Century is the definitive account of how smoking came to be so deeply implicated in our culture, science, policy, and law
Synopsis:
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.
Allan M. Brandt is Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Kass Professor of the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Mindy, June 12, 2007 (view all comments by Mindy)
As a former smoker, I occasionally find myself recollecting the pleasures of lighting up a cigarette with that first cup of morning coffee. This well-told story of the history of mass-produced cigarettes serves as a helpful reminder that quitting smoking is a victory not only over the tobacco industry but also the full-scale PR campaign and propaganda techniques designed to promote and defend them.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (11 of 13 readers found this comment helpful)
The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistance of the Product That Defined America Allan M. Brandt
0 stars -
0 reviews
$
In Stock
Product details
640 pages
Perseus Books Group -
English9780465070473
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by 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, Havard 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 anti-smoking 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 ... knowing their dangers and having strategies for their control'; fortunately, this rigorous history has that first step covered." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review"
by Dallas Morning News,
"While my attention to smoking had flagged, historian Allan M. Brandt had remained vigilant from his vantage point at Harvard University....I figured I would never consume another thick tome about the tobacco history. I calculated incorrectly, and after reading Mr. Brandt's book, am pleased I did."
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"Grist for an anti-smoking campaigner's mill, and testimony to the banality of evil."
"Review"
by Booklist,
"Brandt reminds us that this battle is far from over, as Big Tobacco sets its sights on developing nations, threatening to create a deadly pandemic of global proportion."
"Synopsis"
by Perseus,
From agriculture to big business, from medicine to politics, The Cigarette Century is the definitive account of how smoking came to be so deeply implicated in our culture, science, policy, and law
"Synopsis"
by Perseus,
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.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
