Book Description
No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes -- mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product -- with such sweep and enlivening detail.
Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process -- financial, social, psychological, medical, political, and legal -- are woven together in a riveting narrative. The key characters are the top corporate executives, public health investigators, and antismoking activists who have clashed ever more stridently as Americans debate whether smoking should be closely regulated as a major health menace.
We see tobacco spread rapidly from its aboriginal sources in the New World 500 years ago, as it becomes increasingly viewed by some as sinful and some as alluring, and by government as a windfall source of tax revenue. With the arrival of the cigarette in the late-nineteenth century, smoking changes from a luxury and occasional pastime to an everyday -- to some, indispensable -- habit, aided markedly by the exuberance of the tobacco huskers.
This free-enterprise success saga grows shadowed, from the middle of this century, as science begins to understand the cigarette's toxicity. Ironically the more detailed and persuasive the findings by medical investigators, the more cigarette makers prosper by seeming to modify their product with filters and reduced dosages of tar and nicotine.
We see the tobacco manufacturers come under intensifying assault as a rogue industry for knowingly and callously plying their hazardous wares while insisting that the health charges against them (a) remain unproven, and (b) are universally understood, so smokers indulge at their own risk.
Among the eye-opening disclosures here: outrageous pseudo-scientific claims made for cigarettes throughout the '30s and '40s, and the story of how the tobacco industry and the National Cancer Institute spent millions to develop a "safer" cigarette that was never brought to market.
Dealing with an emotional subject that has generated more heat than light, this book is a dispassionate tour de force that examines the nature of the companies' culpability, the complicity of society as a whole, and the shaky moral ground claimed by smokers who are now demanding recompense.
Customer Reviews:
Great history book.......2005-10-15
Just about every great society has one crop whose presence is intertwined throughout its history, effecting the history, culture, and economics of the nation. For China it would be rice, potatoes for Ireland, coca for Columbia, and most likely tobacco for America. This Pulitzer-Prize winning book shows how and why tobacco is so important to America's history. Specifically, the book traces and examines the economic role of tobacco and the economic policies of the tobacco companies (growers, traders, sellers, etc...) from the 1800s on through the 1990s.
Subjects that are covered in this tome include tobacco farming, the making of cigarettes, advertising in papers, radio, TV and billboards, lobbying of govt officials to reduce regulation, PR wars with health advocates, promotion of overseas sales, and of course, the court cases fought between Big Tobacco (RJR,Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, etc...) and various consumers, consumer groups, government agencies, and governments. The book puts all of this together in a chronological history of tobacco with an emphasis on the role of big corporations like Philip Morris. The author has put this book together using a wide variety of sources both primary and secondary, including a lot of interviews with former and current employees at tobacco companies.
By reading this book, one learns a lot about various aspects of American law, culture, economics, and history. These include consumer relations, agro-business, medical research, lobbying, and advertising. OVerall, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it for anyone to read.
Wall Street Journal Reporter Narrates History of CIgarette Making.......2005-08-03
Well deserving of the Pulitzer Prize that it won, this book
tells the story of the growth of the industry - and the political
controversies about it - largely through the eyes of the main Tobacco Industry executives and lawyers. Beautifully written and
wittily objective, this is the best single place to start to understand this complex 20th century American phenomeon.
A History Lesson in Tobacco.......2002-10-21
I highly recommend Ashes to Ashes, by Richard Kluger, to anyone who wants to know more about the tobacco industry. Kluger provides a comprehensive history, beginning with the temperance of the tobacco leaf and the physical labor involved in producing marketable tobacco, and ending with the struggles the tobacco industry now faces with public health groups and government regulations. Kluger's narrative style makes this thick, fact packed book easy to read. Rich in history, critical, and thought provoking, Ashes to Ashes is a worthwhile read.
Long, but good.......2002-07-03
I'm not a smoker (fortunately my parents totally discouraged me from it, and I had enough smarts to avoid it anyway) but I found this history of the cigarette industry to be quite interesting--especially the facts about the early years.
It got a little dry towards the end, and the whole indictment of the industry has gotten a bit repetitious; I suspect at the time the book was published the message was new, but the message has gotten old fast. (Yes, it's clear that they knew about the health issues, and yes, they did very little about it.)
Overall it's a good read, especially the first half. If you're at all curious about how the cigarette industry came to be, the book does a great job of describing the companies and personalities involved.
Y'all said it: good but loooooong.......2001-09-28
Kluger's research is impressively thorough, his writing is lucid, and his insights -- well, insightful. But his inability to leave any detail unexamined makes this more of a resource book than a narrative. Slogging through to the end, became a chore. I mean, there ARE a few other books I'd like to get to before I die . . .
Book Description
In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.
The Virginia gentry's efforts to shape London's imperial policy were thwarted by British merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite Virginians suspended trade with Britain in order to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible recession. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and tobacco farmers. By the spring of 1776 the gentry believed the only way to regain control of the common people was to take Virginia out of the British Empire.
Forced Founders uses the new social history to shed light on a classic political question: why did the owners of vast plantations, viewed by many of their contemporaries as aristocrats, start a revolution? As Holton's fast-paced narrative unfolds, the old story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex.
Customer Reviews:
Forced Founders review.......2007-07-06
Woody Holton, in his book Forced Founders Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia argues that Americans weaned on the stories of the Virginia elite, who for ideological purposes decided a revolution was needed, are misinformed. Desperation was the true reason that Virginia, and the likes of Jefferson and Washington and the other privileged gentry, moved towards declaring independence from British rule. Their desperation was in response to growing pressures placed on the gentry class by other segments of society. Forced Founders is divided into four parts covering three time periods. The first two parts cover the time period that is essentially the decade after the Great War for Empire, from 1763-1774. The third part covers the years 1774-1775. The fourth and final part covers the year of 1776. In all four parts Holton looks at the Virginia elite and their relations to various parties during that time period. The two parts Holton breaks the first time period down into are the problems that the gentry faced, and the solutions they came up with for those problems.
In Holton's thesis, he states "that the Independence movement was powerfully influenced by British merchants and three groups...Indians, farmers and slaves." (206) Holton uses letters and papers from contemporaries of the time. He also uses secondary sources to fill in the gaps. These sources he uses to good effect. Unfortunately, he only scratches the surface of the pressure these groups placed on the gentry class. One weakness of his research is that he has not found new sources,
but uses existing sources of the gentry class, to explain their relation to the other classes. Even though Holton acknowledges the bias of the elite, he says he was able to get the other groups' perspective. (xxi) While Holton's goal is to show that the revolution was not just a tax revolt, but also a class conflict (206), the book focuses mainly on the economic reasons that these groups were able to affect Virginia's elite society. This focus changes the typical perception that most Americans have of the founding fathers; it makes them seem less principled and god like. They are more identifiably human, as they are shown to be looking out for themselves. The examples that Holton uses are supportive of his thesis, but due to the breadth of the issues associated with these groups, his examples only scratch the surface of the importance these groups played. A second problem is that the Virginia gentry are still the primary focus of the book. Those groups that exert pressure on the founding fathers continue to be relegated to the second tier in importance. A better title might have been Virginia's Founding Fathers: The Economic Pressures That Drove Them to Revolution since most parts of the book deal with the economic effects each of the groups had on the Virginia founding fathers. Besides economic concerns, Holton alludes that another reason for the drive to independence was the founding fathers fear of losing their preferred position in society.
I felt that Forced Founders was a good read though it suffered from its brevity. A more in depth look at other pressures besides economic ones placed by these groups on the gentry would have strengthened his thesis. In addition, despite offering a slightly different perspective on the social elite of Virginia, Forced Founders still has them as the primary focus, continuing to foster the second-class status of other groups, thus perpetuating historians' tendency to consign them to its back page.
Glenn Williams' review.......2006-09-02
My comments concern Mr. Williams' unfavorable review of this book. While Williams has done a capable job outlining his quibbles with the book, and its obvious he read the book in detail, his points are actually peripheral to Holton's main points. Yes, he may have failed to stress what was a skirmish and what wasn't. Or maybe someone could argue that such-and-such a treaty meant this rather than that. But Williams' points actually are fairly trivial, and do not get to the heart of the thesis. I mean, if Holton doesn't get the nuances of the Virginia militia exactly right (or to Williams' definition of right) does it really matter all that much? No.
The book is a good read, well-organized, and ought to be read.
FORCED ARGUMENTS.......2006-05-02
While the book is a "good read" and "thought provoking," I have serious contentions with Holton's interpretation and analysis on many levels, not the least of which center on his lack of understanding and/or misinterpretation of the military and Indian issues which he attempts to cite as supporting his thesis, and which in turn causes me to question his other conclusions in "Forced Founders."
First, he apparently does not know the difference between the provincial militia of the royal colony, the independent militia formed at the resolution of the First Virginia Convention (and Continental Association after the First Continental Congress), or the Virginia militia as constituted by Virginia's revolutionary government, the Virginia Minutemen (as different from common militia) formed by the state in response to a resolution by the Second Continental Congress, the formation of Virginia State Troops or the establishment of the Virginia Continentals. To him, all those organizational concepts seem to be interchangeable.
Second, it is true that Virginia's last royal governor, John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore, formed his "Ethiopian Regiment" by offering freedom to the military age male slaves of rebel masters (not all slaves), but Holton's explanation leads the reader to believe that the project was an overwhelming success. The primary source documents show that it was never accepted into Provincial service, and with less than 100 "effective" men present for duty, and about 60 sick on board hospital ships in May 1776, the regiment was disbanded. Furthermore, they were not Dunmore's only available troops. So how their presence forced slaveholders to support the revolution is questionable.
Holton also neglects to mention Dunmore's raising of the Queen's Own Loyal Regiment of Virginia, which was composed of white Loyalists. It too, like the Ethiopian Regiment, never amounted to much and was disbanded in 1776. But Holton doesn't mention them at all!
Third he mentions the battle of Kemp's Landing (a skirmish, actually) in November 1775, in which Dunmore's "army" (not just the black troops) drove Virginia militia from the field. He says nothing about the December 1775 battle (actually a larger skirmish) of Great Bridge that was a decisive American victory and forced the British to evacuate Norfolk (and Virginia until 1780).
Furthermore, Dunmore's army was about 600 strong, including the white Loyalist regiment, all the Loyalist militia he could muster, plus British sailors and marines, as well as the Ethiopian Regiment. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Ethiopian Regiment ever neared full "establishment" strength of 800 men, so I believe Holton overstates their influence. Also, the American force included Continentals, State troops, minutemen from Fauquier, Augusta and Culpepper Counties (from the western part of the Colony), as well as volunteers from Princess Anne and Norfolk Counties, including one company of "gentleman volunteers," and 250 North Carolina men.
Nor does Holton say much about those slaves who chose to stay with their masters, and how their action influenced decisions to support independence.
As for the founder's being forced by fear of the Indians, his argument on that score is also weak.
First, does he consider the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, which Dunmore negotiated with the Shawnee, Mingo and western Delaware nations in October 1774, when they conceded defeat in "Dunmore's War"? After his flight from Williamsburg in June 1775, the terms of that treaty were finalized between Continental and (Revolutionary) Virginia Indian Commissioners and the same Indian nations in the Treaty of Fort Pitt in October 1775. The two treaties essentially kept the peace on Virginia's frontier (including in Kentucky) from 1774 until 1777 (after independence was declared!). So, Holton's claim that fear of the Indians forced the founders into supporting independence seems to be a weak one to me.
Second, Dunmore did plot to solicit the Ohio Indian nations to attack settlements on the Virginia frontier, unless its inhabitants affirmed their loyalty. However, the party of three Provincial officers he dispatched to put the plan into action (led by John Connolly), were captured by Maryland minutemen in the town of Hagers Town (Hagerstown) in November 1775, and Connolly was subsequently imprisoned in Philadelphia. The abortive plot was discovered when incriminating papers were found in Connolly's baggage, which was the source of Jefferson's indictment in the Declaration of Independence that king was "inciting the savages."
Third, Holton apparently also does not understand the operation of the Indian polities. He fails to mention that the Six Nations of Iroquois, who considered the nations in the Ohio country their "dependents" by right of conquest and "spoke for" them, were trying to maintain their neutrality early in the war. After being convinced by the officers of the British Indian Department (operating from Fort Niagara and Fort Detroit, not Virginia) that it was in their best interest to support the king against "the Bostonians," most of the Six Nations (the Onondaga, Cayuga, Mohawk and Seneca) and their "dependents," (Wyandot, western Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo and others) did finally come into the war in early 1777, when they struck backcountry settlements, according to British Indian Department officers, "from Fort Stanwix (at the head of the Mohawk Valley in New York) to the Ohio" and that the American backcountry "From the Susquehanna to the Kiskismenitas Creek upon the Ohio, and from thence down to the Kankawa [Kanawha] River is now nothing but an heap of ashes."
Finally, I don't believe Holton ever makes a convincing argument that tenants exerted influence to force their aristocratic landlords into supporting independence, and his argument about debtors falls short of being conclusive.
Who Were America's First Freedom Fighters?.......2005-05-21
In Forced Founders, Woody Holton writes about five non-elite groups in pre-Revolutionary America who struggled for relief from a long list of economic and political imperial burdens. Small landholders, merchants, debtors and even Native Americans and slaves in Virginia were affected by a global depression in which the price of tobacco had fallen close to its lowest historical levels, prices of other commodities had plummeted and the credit market had collapsed. Elite, wealthy Virginia gentlemen farmers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry felt the squeeze but for Virginia's non-elites, the confluence of adverse economic factors became an overwhelming millstone. Everyone in Virginia suffered the effects of the Navigation Acts that restricted colonial trade only to Britain. Everyone was forced to adjust to the boycott of Britain passed by the Continental Congress. Virginia's economy staggered when small businesses and landowners defaulted on their debt, faced foreclosure of their assets and sunk into economic ruin. Holton's thesis is that well-to-do colonial Virginia leaders were pushed to choose rebellion against Britain by these non-elite groups whose meager resources made them defenseless against this toxic brew of imperial oppression and negative global economic conditions.
Perhaps the most powerful force behind the fight for independence was the paralyzing debt incurred by Virginia's growers. It was held primarily by their British merchant counterparts who bought their tobacco, sold them supplies and lent them money. The Virginians' debt was even more overwhelming because it landed on their balance sheets during one of the worst recessions of the colonial era. Virginian Arthur Lee wrote in 1764 that American colonists owed British merchants ₤6 million and British mercantilist policies drained an additional ₤500,000 a year from the tobacco colonies. Virginia's small landholders and business people - and no doubt, their counterparts in other colonies - realized British commercial, monetary and immigration policies favored the mercantilist-creditors back in London. Thus it was that debtors in Virginia became unrelenting critics of British policy, making them a persistent political force in favor of independence.
Virginia land speculators thwarted by British governance were another perpetual burr under the saddles of the colony's leadership, not least because of the unrest and threat of attack they created among Native Americans. Although the Indians ultimately lost the commercial, legal and military battles they fought in defense of their land, their efforts through tribal coalitions to enlist British support were irritatingly effective. One of the unintentional results of the Indians' occasional success against the white land speculators was pressure from them on Virginia's leadership. Independence from Britain would permit Virginia land speculators to move against the Indians, unimpeded by imperial interference.
Like all whites in pre-Emancipation America, colonial Virginians considered black Africans a serious threat to their security. Their fear boiled over when Virginia slaves began to negotiate in 1775 for their freedom with British Governor Dunmore in exchange for military assistance to help control civil unrest. White Virginians who'd been independence-neutral or British loyalists became overnight patriots. For them, the only way to restore order, preserve ownership and protect property was to escape British governance and begin a new governmental regime. It was ironic the slaves' ploy for personal freedom frightened Virginia's elites to support the fight for American independence.
Holton guides readers of Forced Founders through an intriguing but occasionally awkward review of the influence of non-elite groups on Virginia's road to Revolution. Its virtue is its point-of-view; its burden is its less-than-focused scope. In the end, it appears he does too little with too much.
However Holton is to be commended for thinking outside the box. He uses primary sources from the gentry to study Virginia's economically and politically important "non-gentlemen" because, says Holton, their records reveal the gentlemen as powerfully influenced by the actions of smallholders, slaves and Native Americans. Working top down and one class removed, he shows the American Revolution was not just a rich man's war. Historians are well-advised to incorporate such 360-degree-point-of-view thinking in all their examination of primary sources. As they pursue this method, however, they must focus their theses and remain alert to the dangers of scope creep.
A must read for anyone even attempting to study the era........2003-08-30
One of the most common misconceptions of Americans today centers around the revolutionary war, specifically the fact that this war was caused by colonist unrest due to excessive taxation, chiefly in Massachusetts. Fortunately, Holton is able to modify this fallacy, as he presents towards massive strife in the Virginia colony that can be linked as a direct cause of the revolutionary war.
By presenting tension between everyone from debtors and creditors to oppressed minorities (slaves and Native Americans) and the Anglo Saxon majority, Holton is able to paint a much more realistic picture of the times. Readers will be shocked by evidence presented; especially notable is the substantiation of rich landowners actually wanting to exterminate the slave trade prior to the war, almost akin to a sumptuary law, to preserve social boundaries. Also notable is the documentation of how close battle came to breaking out in Virginia as a result of Dunmore's actions, far prior to any serious action in Lexington, Concord, or even Boston.
Although this book makes an interesting read in correcting some of the misunderstandings more than two centuries of time have created, it also works well in conjunction with a study of the rest of the war. When Dunmore's actions are viewed as a precursor to those of Cornwallis, Tarleton, and Clinton, an even more worthwhile and in depth study of the era can be begun.
Thus, whether the reader is just has an interest in the time period or is a scholar striving to make connections, Holton's work is an excellent read. One can only hope that Holton or others can help paint a more realistic picture for the other twelve colonies.
Book Description
The great Tidewater planters of mid-eighteenth-century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost, they were also anxious tobacco farmers, harried by a demanding planting cycle, trans-Atlantic shipping risks, and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that stressed personal autonomy.
T. H. Breen's study of this tobacco culture focuses on how elite planters gave meaning to existence. He examines the value-laden relationships--found in both the fields and marketplaces--that led from tobacco to politics, from agrarian experience to political protest, and finally to a break with the political and economic system that they believed threatened both personal independence and honor.
Customer Reviews:
Revolutionary capitalists.......2006-12-29
The agricultural origins of Americans' habits of revolution, even their habits of being distinguishable as Americans are too little emphasized, but T.H. Breen's "Tobacco Culture" goes a long way to rectifying that.
The situation in the mid-18th century was not the first instance of unrest on the land, only the most consequential; it was followed by similar -- but different -- upheavals that led to civil war, to Roosevelt democracy and, the revolutionary spirit atrophying as the overall wealth and stability of America grew, to the disgruntlement of the Midwestern corn/hog/cattle farmers in the 1970s.
A theoretical superstructure to bring all these into a general view would be welcome, if justified, but perhaps the rebelliousness of the farmers is not as coherent a concept as I think it is. American farmer unrest is different in kind from the jacqueries and rural incendiarism in other times and places, because the American farmer was, usually, a capitalist.
Never more so than in mid-century Virginia and Maryland. Indebted capitalists, but capitalists all the same. And men with social status and political power -- not the source of radical revolution in most times and places.
Breen's little book emphasizes the debts, the risks, the resentments as Scottish factors gradually gained (as it seemed to the farmers) a stranglehold on the independence of the rural plutocracy. The factors, in their own minds, were rather in the position of a fashionable West End tailor whose lordly customers are so far in arrears that he dare not keep cutting coats for them. It was a complicated situation, and it is a question how well the players truly understood where they stood in it, for all their education and sophistication,
Perhaps Breen understands them better than they understood themselves.
He warns against looking for monocausal explanations of world-shaking changes and explicitly denies that planter debt can explain American revolutionary changes. Of course. There were patriots in the Middle Colonies and in New England who were not affected by the long decline in tobacco as a commodity. Nevertheless, "Tobacco Culture" goes on the shelf with other key volumes that help us understand the greatest political event in human history: the American Revolution.
A scholarly look at the American Revolution.......2000-05-11
I'm glad to see this was reprinted, as I found it to be a quite interesting look at reasons why American elites supported a war that most likely would have cost them everything they owned. The answer: they didn't own anything by the end of the 18th century. The reason why is that they had bought everything on credit against their tobacco crop. When the economy nosedived, the British merchants who held the debts wanted their due. The ensuing resentment by the planters led to support for the American revolutionary movement.
Breen used exhaustive research in putting this book together, and even threw in some neat information on the Founding Fathers. Did you know Washington failed as a tobacco farmer? That he continually loaned money to a deadbeat that never repaid him? It's in this book.
Another aspect of this book I found interesting was the step by step process of growing tobacco in the 18th century. It's hard to believe that anyone made a successful go of it. A neat book with a neat argument.
Good cultural study of pre-revolutionary Chesapeake elite........1998-03-22
This work explores the relationship between tobacco, debt, and revolution in the pre-revolutionary Chesapeake. T.H. Breen's path to revolution flows from (1) trouble in the tobacco economy to (2) increasing planter debt to (3) a fear over lost autonomy to (4) a collective frustration to (5) a commitment to cultural renewal. The collective frustration and commitment to renewal both coincided with the resistance to Britain over constitutional issues. While not advocating any monocausal explanation, Breen does argue that the planter's fear over lost autonomy was necessary for the revolution. My main criticism is that he assumes that the elites set the pattern for behavior in the Chesapeake and therefore does not adequately explain why the Chesapeake's non-elites supported the revolution. This question regarding Virginia's non-elites seems particular important given Virginia's relative internal unity during the revolutionary period. Overall, Breen's exploration of the cultural world of the Chesapeake elite does enhance our understanding of the path to revolution. I recommend this work to any student of revolutionary America.
Book Description
Praise for Smoke in Their Eyes
"With the passion and talent that are his trademark, Mike Pertschuk tells the story of the tobacco wars from inside the crusaders' bunker—how they came remarkably close to victory but why big tobacco won in the end. Read it and weep, but don't just weep. Learn the critical lessons for movement leadership in the future, so improbable victories will happen."—Robert B. Reich, Former Secretary of Labor, Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis University
"Nobody has a broader or clearer understanding of the worldwide anti-tobacco movement than Michael Pertschuk. His inside analysis of how its brightest hour suddenly turned into its darkest moment is an urgent object lesson, teaching that even those firmly on the side of the angels can be consumed by righteousness and self-importance. The U.S. public health community's failure to seriously blunt the perils of smoking—the nation's most destructive drug—when it had the tobacco industry reeling is a national tragedy that needed to be chronicled."—Richard Kluger, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashes to Ashes
"A wonderful resource for readers who want to understand the complicated mix of high and low politics that animates progressive, `movement' interest group activity in the United States. Smoke in Their Eyes is his best yet, a treasure trove of insight, and, as always, a compelling read."—Nelson Polsby, Heller Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley
"Certainly the best-written piece of nonfiction in its genre I have ever read. Pertschuk has a gift for taking what could be just another `Washington insider' story and transforming it into the true overarching moral/political/human drama it actually is. I read it through, transfixed, because so much of it is so relevant to my own experiences of forty years in the environmental wars."—Brock Evans, Executive Director, The Endangered Species Coalition
"Pertschuk brings great wisdom and keen insight to this sobering tale that should appeal to all those committed to political change and to instructors looking for ways to teach students about the complexity of turning ideals into policy.—Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Harvard University
"When the definitive history of the tobacco control movement is written, this era, this series of events, will constitute one of the central chapters. This book is essential, indeed riveting, reading. Written by one of the most thoughtful observers of the tobacco control scene, himself a major figure in its history, the book offers a trenchant insider's view of what transpired during those fateful months. Anyone interested in social movements more generally will find herein a vivid lesson, a textbook if you will, of the threats to a movement as it gains steam and resources. This is an important story. It is exceedingly well told."—Kenneth E. Warner, Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Public Health, University of Michigan
"Smoke in Their Eyes is that rare combination: a great read yet also packed with insights for anyone interested in the politics of public interest advocacy or legislation or multi-party negotiation or leadership."—Philip B. Heymann, James Barr Ames Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government
"As a case study for popular consumption and for college and university courses, this is as good as it gets—as good as Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action, and for the same reasons."—William K. Muir Jr. , Professor Emeritus of Political Science, UC Berkeley
"Mike Pertschuk is above all a master teacher. He brings an enormous depth of wisdom and experience to this beautifully written volume, and draws conclusions that we must all heed."—Michael Daube, CEO, Western Australian Cancer Society, and Chair, Tobacco Control Program, International Union Against Cancer (UICC)
Customer Reviews:
Learning for the Future.......2002-02-05
Michael Pertschuk's book is a must-read for anyone who is working to accomplish significant social change in America, particularly on issues where there is a powerful, monied opposition. He gives us critical insights into how a progressive movement can hurt itself by unneccessary personal attacks and ideological rigidity. He also teaches us how a progressive movement can overcome these obstacles and become a powerful unified force for good in our society. Over the years, I have seen the kind of internicine warfare so artfully described by Mr. Pertschuk undermine efforts to reduce gun violence and health care expansion. I hope that his book will help all of learn how to work together to achieve our common goals.
Divided We Fall.......2002-02-01
Reviewer: Morton Mintz from Chevy Chase, MD United States. This is a riveting insider's account of an awesome snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory. The anti-tobacco movement had for decades soight legislation that would prevent the premature deaths of millions of Americans. On the brink of success--the McCain bill--the movement blew it. Michael Pertschuk's book--thoroughly researched, eloquently written, and scrupuously fair--tells how and why. It powerfully warns all humanitarian causes seeking legislation in a corrupted Washington: You can't get it all. Understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Embrace an imperfect compromise that takes giant strides in the right direction. And beware egomaniacal leaders: they can become best friends of your enemies.
Taking part in history..........2002-01-28
Mike Pertschuk's new book provides tremendously important lessons to all of us working on social justice issues. His story makes you wonder what could have been possible in the tobacco wars if people on the side of the angels worked together, strategized together, honestly communicated with one another, and avoided personal attacks.
As one who actively fought with many tobacco prevention activists to kill the settlement and "improve" the McCain bill, even I found value in reading the tale from the perspective of Matt Myers.
Mike's book in no way changed my mind about the final outcome (i.e,, I think the settlement deal flopping was a good thing for the movement. And while I feel bad that the McCain bill died, I remain skeptical that the industry would have allowed it to pass even with some liability relief). That said, there are lessons to be learned.
Smoke in Their Eyes did make me wonder about what could have been possible had movement leaders developed strong, trusting relationships with each other, and if they communicated actively, openly, and honestly. The lack of communication between both leadership camps was most telling, in my opinion.
Besides its critical lessons, SMOKE IN THEIR EYES is a wonderful, gripping, story that makes you feel like you are right in the middle of the biggest national anti-tobacco battle in US history.
The lessons we learn depends on the questions we ask.......2002-01-28
"Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars," is the telling subtitle to this deeply-searching book that examines the history of the 1997-1998 round-robin negotiations between the US tobacco companies, litigation lawyers, anti-tobacco advocates, the Clinton administration, and Congress. The matter finally came down to two votes against passage of Senator McCain's comprehensive tobacco control bill, which would have provided the greatest concessions to public health ever imagined, or indeed now imaginable. These included federally mandated regulation of tobacco by the Food and Drug Administration, a stiff increase in the price of cigarettes (the most potent measure to reduce the prevalence of smoking), severe strictures on advertising, penalties against the industry if teen-age smoking rates didn't fall, a national program for smokers who want to quit, among other provisions. The eventual settlement between the US Attorneys-General and the industry is a pale reflection of what could have been.
All advocacy and citizen movements have their "radical" and "moderate" wings. The rejectionists of the anti-tobacco movement refused to support the McCain bill in the end because
it provided the tobacco industry with a (large) annual cap on how much they would have to pay out in law suits each year, assuming they lost such suits. There were those movement leaders
who refused any concession that smelled at all of immunity for an industry whose products kill over 400,000 Americans each year, and castigated the moderates for even sitting down with the
industry to discuss a settlement. The failure of the McCain bill was also a set back to the nascent tobacco control movements in other countries, "because we are not able to stop tobacco aggression without success in the United States," as one Polish activist observed.
The author, former head of the Federal Trade Commission, founder of the Advocacy Institute, and long-time anti-tobacco activist, richly analyzes what went wrong with a primer on "Thirteen
Ways to Lead a Movement Backward," whose obvious inverse is how to lead a movement to victory. A successful movement strategically and knowingly blends vision and pragmatism,
engages in a "good cop-bad cop" approach to negotiations. The failed movement breaks out into factional war. The anti-tobacco movement yet to recover.
The other key lesson, is that all the principals but the rejectionists were willing to reconsider their roles in the debacle, to search deeply into their actions and motives, and to examine how they might have behaved differently. Pertschuk gives his own mea culpa. Even Ralph Nader learned something new. When the next opportunity comes, as it surely will, I would want these reflective persons to be out in front again.
History Rewritten While You Wait.......2002-01-23
In this book, Pertschuk attempts to rewrite history with
himself as a hero. He also demonstrates how little he
has learned from that history. The two may be related.
Fortunately, the history is well documented; we are
not dependent on unreliable accounts of it. The key
fact is: the tobacco industry killed the McCain bill
as soon as it started to get tough on tobacco and
good for the public. 3 out of 4 members of the Congress that
killed the bill, had taken money from the tobacco industry.
So it wasn't too hard for the industry to kill a bill it
didn't like.
Pertschuk's rewrite would have us believe that victory
for public health was almost within our grasp. The
key fact is, the industry had a veto at all times,
which it didn't hesitate to use. In this battle
there was no danger at any time of public health
prevailing over industry profits. No historic
opportunity was missed; the opportunity never existed.
Not with this Congress.
On the contrary: if anything was narrowly missed,
it was a federal bailout of Big Tobacco. This
same Congress that killed a bill that was getting
too good for the public, also had the power to give
the tobacco industry a get-out-of-jail-free card:
legal immunity, special rights in court. That
was what the industry wanted, because it would
keep it safe and profitable.
This was no hypothetical danger: various forms of
immunity appeared in the McCain bill at different times.
Indeed it was without immunity in the bill that
the industry turned against the bill and killed it.
So what was missed, if anything, was a legal device
to keep Big Tobacco profitable and powerful into
the next century.
This history forms a pattern: the tobacco industry
has many times, in many states and localities, tried
to enter into closed-door, private negotiations.
The history of such closed-door deals also forms a
pattern: they turn out to protect industry profits
and do little to protect public health. Secret
negotiations with tobacco industry lawyers have
a long, sad, history: they don't tend to produce
results notably in the public interest.
It is sad that Pertschuk has not learned from
this history. It is even sadder that he attempts
to rewrite a recent instance of it. But perhaps
this is not a coincidence. Perhaps it would indeed
be difficult to write "I later realized that
I was mistaken in my approach, and that the
predictions that I differed with at the time,
were proven correct by the plain facts of history."
And perhaps we could apply Santayana here:
those who rewrite the past, surely will not learn
from it, and are then condemned to repeat it.
That would be saddest of all, because the tobacco
industry is still fighting hard to get
special rights in court. And is still a master
of closed-door negotiations. All it needs is
a couple of public health figures to endorse them.
Book Description
Drawing on scores of interviews with black and white tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Robert Korstad brings to life the forgotten heroes of Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America-CIO. These workers confronted a system of racial capitalism that consigned African Americans to the basest jobs in the industry, perpetuated low wages for all southerners, and shored up white supremacy.
Galvanized by the emergence of the CIO, African Americans took the lead in a campaign that saw a strong labor movement and the reenfranchisement of the southern poor as keys to reforming the South--and a reformed South as central to the survival and expansion of the New Deal. In the window of opportunity opened by World War II, they blurred the boundaries between home and work as they linked civil rights and labor rights in a bid for justice at work and in the public sphere.
But civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. Its defeat undermined later efforts by civil rights activists to raise issues of economic equality to the moral high ground occupied by the fight against legalized segregation and, Korstad contends, constrains the prospects for justice and democracy today.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating history, important analysis--read it!.......2004-05-07
This is a terrific book--an important history that brings together a story of race, labor unions, economic change, politics, and culture, but never loses sight of the actual people involved. Very well written--not dry and academic like some history, but also very rich analytically. Buy it and read it!
Fabulous story, fabulous storytelling.......2003-06-28
In this wonderful book, African American tobacco workers tell their own story of civil rights struggle and union organizing. It is long, but so was the struggle, and I couldn't put it down. Oral interviews give us the black workers' own accounts, sending, for once, the white supremacists to the back of the bus.
Read it. You will find a South you never thought you would find.
Average customer rating:
|
The Tobacco Wars
Walter Adams , and
James W. Brock
Manufacturer: South-Western College Pub
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ASIN: 0324012969 |
Book Description
Designed as a supplement for either Principles or Intermediate Microeconomics, The Tobacco Wars is an interesting and unique way to illustrate the concepts of microeconomics as applied to real-life, current events. Not only does this lively discussion of the tobacco litigation provide insight into the recent and historical controversies, but it also follows along with the concepts taught in microeconomics. The Tobacco Wars presents the economic theory surrounding the tobacco wars as a creative dialogue between an economist, a historian and a tobacco industry executive. The conversation between these three fictional key players illustrates the real-life issues and controversies currently at play and asks the readers to make up their own minds, and reach their own conclusions.
Average customer rating:
- Putting a Face on a Faceless Industry
- An eye-opening "Must Read" manual for activists
- Best Political Science Book of the Year
|
Tobacco War: Inside the California Battles
Stanton A. Glantz , and
Edith D. Balbach
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Similar Items:
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The Cigarette Papers
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A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle With a Deadly Industry
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Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris
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Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars
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Regulating Tobacco
ASIN: 0520222857 |
Book Description
Tobacco War charts the dramatic and complex history of tobacco politics in California over the past quarter century. Beginning with the activities of a small band of activists who, in the 1970s, put forward the radical notion that people should not have to breathe second-hand tobacco smoke, Stanton Glantz and Edith Balbach follow the movement through the 1980s, when activists created hundreds of city and county ordinances by working through their local officials, to the present--when tobacco is a highly visible issue in American politics and smoke-free restaurants and bars are a reality throughout the state. The authors show how these accomplishments rest on the groundwork laid over the past two decades by tobacco control activists who have worked across the U.S. to change how people view the tobacco industry and its behavior.
Tobacco War is accessibly written, balanced, and meticulously researched. The California experience provides a graphic demonstration of the successes and failures of both the tobacco industry and public health forces. It shows how public health advocates slowly learned to control the terms of the debate and how they discovered that simply establishing tobacco control programs was not enough, that constant vigilance was necessary to protect programs from a hostile legislature and governor. In the end, the California experience proves that it is possible to dramatically change how people think about tobacco and the tobacco industry and to rapidly reduce tobacco consumption. But California's experience also demonstrates that it is possible to run such programs successfully only as long as the public health community exerts power effectively. With legal settlements bringing big dollars to tobacco control programs in every state, this book is must reading for anyone interested in battling and beating the tobacco industry.
Customer Reviews:
Putting a Face on a Faceless Industry.......2002-05-27
The tobacco industry is one of the most evil industries allowed to operate in America. From child labor to seductive advertising to distribution of a deadly product and ending in mountains of money in political bribes, The US Tobacco Industry has just about every imaginable negative attribute of corporate America, all rolled into one, neat package.
Tobacco War puts a face on a faceless industry, and it is not a very pretty face. From exposing the hidden truths of the seductive advertising schemes and the green blood that flows through the veins of America's political system in every level, Tobacco War doesn't simply archive news stories, lawsuits and events, but connects the dots and presents the reader with a realistic picture of how big tobacco operates.
Likewise, tomorrows activist are reading this book today to gain the edge in a climate of misinformation. Provides grass-roots information for activists to develop and deploy campaigns.
Think your cigarette maker cares about you? They have you hooked, and you are the least of their worries. They are working to reel the next generation of smokers in for the kill.
And so far, the catch is coming in... wallet and all.
An eye-opening "Must Read" manual for activists.......2000-11-08
"The Tobacco War" is part social and political history, part "how-to" manual. Not a dry catalogue of events, but written with a sense of the human drama surrounding each twist and turn of the tale. Co-author Stan Glantz, involved so deeply in the movement, offers the most incisive, comprehensive, and definitive perspective on the California anti-tobacco effort available. I was astounded to read of the intrigue and jaw-dropping audacity of the Tobacco Industry and its allies in the State government on one hand, and the incredible courage and tenacity of those fighting it in the most aggressive and effective way in history on the other. The growth in political savvy and will of the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society is catalogued in detail, as are the machinations of the State legislature, the governor's office, and lobbyists and pressure groups when money comes up for grabs. This is an outstanding text for the social or political scientist, activists of any type, and anyone in state local politics. It is a remarkable and practical instruction manual for anyone in tobacco use prevention today. These heroes have not left the field. Their enemy, the Tobacco Industry, is immortal.
Best Political Science Book of the Year.......2000-05-08
I could hardly put this book down. The battle being fought is truly a life and death matter, alliances and strategies evolve on both sides, and the Tobacco Industry uses their multi-million war chests to mislead the public over and over and over again. Even when you think you can relax after a victory by the anti-tobacco forces, in the next chapter the Tobacco Industry is lurking behind yet another door with a butcher's cleaver, which ends up being wielded by tobacco funded politicians and the California Medical Association to cut tobacco education funds and to weaken the anti-tobacco media campaign. Really this book is about much more than California and its battle with the tobacco industry. It is the best book I've ever read about why we need campaign finance reform and effective sunshine laws. You are shown all the nitty-gritty details, the back room deals, the closed-door bargaining. You'll emerge from this book well-prepared to detect lies in future wars, and to read between-the-lines in daily newspaper coverage.
Average customer rating:
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Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, with Sundry Observations on Bastardy, Child-Rearing, Romance, Matrimony, Commerce, Tobacco, Slavery, and the Politics of Revolutionary America
Ronald Hoffman ,
Sally D. Mason , and
Eleanor S. Darcy
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0807826499
Release Date: 2001-12-01 |
Book Description
This compelling collection of correspondence between a father and a son documents the history of eighteenth-century America through the intimate story of a family and the journey from boyhood to political prominence of its most illustrious member, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Beginning in the late 1740s, when "Papa" (Charles Carroll of Annapolis) sent "Charley" (Charles Carroll of Carrollton) away from his native Maryland to be educated in Europe, the letters present a new perspective on colonial and Revolutionary America as the lived experience of Roman Catholics, whose defiant adherence to their faith denied them the civil rights and guarantees--including the right to hold office and to vote--that their Protestant counterparts enjoyed. This context accentuates the drama of Charley's rise to power during the Revolution, the necessity of the political and economic compromises he felt compelled to make, and the ultimately tragic personal price exacted by his success. Bringing the Carroll's public and private lives sharply into focus, these volumes present the past in its fullest human dimensions.
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Emancipation in Virginia's Tobacco Belt, 1850-1870
Lynda J. Morgan
Manufacturer: Univ of Georgia Pr
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ASIN: 0820314153 |
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