The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America

"Finalist"

"This is a compelling study of how the cigarette industry, an industry that has a very powerful and deeply negative impact on health, developed, endured, and thrived. Whereas historians of medicine often focus on people who are trying to improve the health of the public, Brandt focuses on an industry whose commercial success has been devastating. To explain the cigarette’s deadly persistence, Brandt turns to a wide range of social, political, and economic developments. He examines the history of tobacco advertising, the history of lobbying, as well as the story of how tobacco products were excluded from the regulation to which food and drugs are subject. But the story is also one of science and new regulations—the rise of epidemiological connections between cancer, heart disease and cigarette smoking in the mid-20th century, and new efforts to curtail smoking and the industry’s power and influence. The book is impressive in its scope and offers amazing insights about the interactions of industry, politics, and public health. One underexplored theme in the cigarette century—it’s there, but it’s not as broadly examined as other developments—is the ways in which the tobacco industry targeted different groups of consumers and developed their markets. In Pushing Cool I avail myself of tobacco industry archives that came to light because of lawsuits brought against cigarette companies by state attorneys generals and the Department of Justice in the late nineties. The legal settlement made millions of documents on the industry available, making work like Allan Brandt’s possible, as well as my research on the rise of the menthol cigarette and racial marketing. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I track how the false and deceptive promise of health through mentholated smoking first developed in the early 20th century. Then, as cancer and heart disease became more and more linked to smoking, menthol and filtered cigarettes rose in popularity. It was in the 1960s that industry pivoted to racial marketing of menthols, pushing various brands more aggressively to the Black inner city. In Pushing Cool I grapple with why and how these pivots happened. There are some surprises in the story, such as the fact that when the industry was pushed by government efforts to curtail cigarette advertising to youth, they began in earnest to look for new urban markets. Allan Brandt and Robert Proctor, another important cigarette historian, developed an excellent critique of the tobacco industry. Proctor argues that one of the main products of the tobacco industry was doubt and skepticism about the science. They both focus on the ways the industry manufactured doubt about the link between cigarettes and cancer, between tobacco use and heart disease. The industry sowed skepticism towards science and medical expertise that became part of political and popular culture. Other historians, like Naomi Oreskes, have pointed out how this industry strategy also informs climate science denialism . While the anti-vaccination skepticism has slightly different origins, the sentiment and what Robert Proctor called ‘agnotology’, the science of doubt, travel a similar path with other forms of denialism. In my book, I looked at a different aspect of industry-sponsored science; not those who undermined science, but the social scientists who worked for the industry, and how cigarette companies used consumer psychology to study health anxieties, desires for safety, and how to pitch filters and menthol to a health-anxious population. I look at how psychology and science helped industry develop markets. Historians are not futurists, but I would say that we’re in a hopeful moment. One can always hope and be wary at the same time, while also working for equity and justice in our medical and healthcare systems. That’s all I can say. I will say that history can be a good guide towards a more equitable and just future."