Audiobook14 hours
The Cigarette: A Political History
Written by Sarah Milov
Narrated by Janet Metzger
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Tobacco is the quintessential American product. From Jamestown to the Marlboro Man, the plant occupied the heart of the nation's economy and expressed its enduring myths. But today smoking rates have declined and smokers are exiled from many public spaces. The story of tobacco's fortunes may seem straightforward: science triumphed over our addictive habits and the cynical machinations of tobacco executives. Yet the reality is more complicated. Both the cigarette's popularity and its eventual decline reflect a parallel course of shifting political priorities. The tobacco industry flourished with the help of the state, but it was the concerted efforts of citizen nonsmokers who organized to fight for their right to clean air that led to its undoing.
After the Great Depression, public officials and organized tobacco farmers worked together to ensure that the government's regulatory muscle was more often deployed to promote tobacco than to protect the public from its harms. Even as evidence of the cigarette's connection to cancer grew, medical experts could not convince officials to change their stance. What turned the tide, Sarah Milov argues, was a new kind of politics: a movement for nonsmokers' rights.
After the Great Depression, public officials and organized tobacco farmers worked together to ensure that the government's regulatory muscle was more often deployed to promote tobacco than to protect the public from its harms. Even as evidence of the cigarette's connection to cancer grew, medical experts could not convince officials to change their stance. What turned the tide, Sarah Milov argues, was a new kind of politics: a movement for nonsmokers' rights.
Related to The Cigarette
Related audiobooks
Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the Black Market Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Owning the Sun: A People's History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crusaders, Gangsters, and Whiskey: Prohibition in Memphis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.-How the Working Poor Became Big Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Desperate: An Epic Battle for Clean Water and Justice in Appalachia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neither Snow Nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything - and Endangered the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Arms and the Dudes: How Three Stoners from Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of America in Ten Strikes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of MI6: 1909-1949 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coal: A Human History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sweet and Low: A Family Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Cigarette
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
4 ratings0 reviews