The Cigarette Century

Starred review from December 31, 2007
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 controlâ€; fortunately, this rigorous history has that first step covered.

Starred review from March 5, 2007
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.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2007
In the mid-1800s, cigarettes were considered a curiosity and represented a minuscule portion of tobacco consumption. The transformation of cigarettes into a mass-consumer product would have deep and lasting effects on our cultural values and on our legal and political systems. Brandt, Harvard professor and respected medical historian, was able to examine vast amounts of internal confidential industry correspondence, reports, and memos due to tobacco litigation "discovery" and Internet access. This exhaustive study reveals how the ascendancy of a product that clearly threatens the health of the user caused its manufacturers to deny and obfuscate the facts for decades, meanwhile secretly ensuring that their addictive product would hook an increasingly younger population. The issue goes right to the core of America's belief in freedom and the right to do as we choose, but also the right to live free from the imposition of harm imposed by others from secondhand smoke. Most important, 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)