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The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America
Basic Books
March 2007
On Sale: March 12, 2007
600 pages ISBN: 0465070477 EAN: 9780465070473 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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.
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