Allan Brandt examines the tobacco industry, and how it's shaped American history since cigarettes began being mass-produced in the late 1800s.
The Cigarette Century is available for purchase at amazon.com
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Allan Brandt
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Comments [3]
I'm sorry but I don't believe that any one person had to convince the movie industry to show people smoking cigarettes. People did smoke cigarettes back then so why not show smoking on in a film? Did this promote the interests of the cigarett industry? Sure it did but it doesn't prove that "A Hard Days Night" was insidiously made to convince Beatles fans to smoke. The Beatles really were smokers!
How do the tobacco companies get away with their so called 'anti-smoking' ads?
Their pro-smoking ads show beautiful, slim people smoking and partying.
The anti-smoking ads show pimply, fat, sad teenagers talking about not smoking. The real message: non-smokers are not popular, unhappy and ugly. So if you want to get a boy/girl friend, you better start smoking.
It would be interesting to hear how much money the tobacco companies made during the 20th century. They seemed eager to pay any amount to settle claims against them. Advertising included, how much does it cost to make a pack of cigarettes? Also, perhaps some discussion of local and state smoking bans...how they compare to Prohibition and whether the lawsuits at the end of the last century opened the door to bans. Are tobacco companies selling their product at a loss in developing countries in order to establish market share? And is tobacco America's biggest export in terms of dollar value?
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