The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistance of the Product That Defined America by Allan M. Brandt

From the Publisher

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.

The Washington Post - Bryan Burrough

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.

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[ing] their dangers and hav[ing] strategies for their control"; fortunately, this rigorous history has that first step covered. (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

In this smoke-filled room of a book, full of secrets and closed files, medical historian and expert witness Brandt reveals just what Big Tobacco has wrought in the last 125 years. Mass production requires mass consumption. So when the Bonsack machine came along in 1882, future tycoon James Duke, blessed with "a capacious, even global vision for his industry" and able to roll out 100,000 cigarettes a day, came to the realization that the things would have to supplant chewing tobacco, pipes and cigars in order to earn their keep. How to do so? From the start, writes Brandt, Duke pressed an aggressive program combining innovations in technology, advertising and marketing. His Tobacco Trust, though soon broken up by federal regulators, was successful well beyond Duke's plans, in part through the accident of changing cultural norms, in part because of deliberate recruitment of women and children as smokers. As Brandt relates, the major producers benefited, too, from conflict and empire; during World War I, General Pershing said, "You ask me what we need to win this war. I answer tobacco, as much as bullets." The manly accessory became necessity for the conscious hipster, thanks to skillful product placement and the insistence of Big Tobacco that cigarette-smoking was not only good for the image but even good for the body. Brandt, an able archivist, cites internal documents showing that the tobacco industry has long been aware of the deleterious effects of smoking-and that it has blocked proposals to produce safer goods, if such were possible, through "legal counsel eager to avoid tacit public admission of the existing product's dangers." Whereas in mid-century, about half of Americans smoked,today fewer than a fourth do. Still, warns Brandt, an important expert witness in the RICO trial of 2003, Big Tobacco remains influential-in part, he adds, thanks to "Bush appointees at the Department of Justice."Grist for an anti-smoking campaigner's mill, and testimony to the banality of evil.

Product Details