The Cigarette: A Political History

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

Author: Sarah Milov
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 10/12/2021
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780674260313

About the Author
Milov, Sarah: - Sarah Milov is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A former fellow of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, she has written on the tobacco industry, the rise of e-cigarettes, and the grassroots fight to battle climate change. Her research explores how organized interest groups and everyday Americans influence government policy.