Customer Reviews

Cigarettes: Anatomy of an Industry from Seed to Smoke (Bazaar Book)

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This is a wonderful little book that excels on many levels. First of all, it's a history of tobacco from the time Europeans discovered it to the present. The story is told efficiently and well, but with an eye to the ironies of history (today, for example, states derive significant tax revenue from sales of tobacco products--so how badly do they want to stamp out smoking?).

Second, "Cigarettes" takes us through the route tobacco must follow to become a cigarette: its growing, auctioning, curing, blending, manufacturing, marketing and final sale. People might be surprised to learn that banning TV advertising, then billboard advertising, and then imposing multibillion-dollar legal judgments on the big tobacco companies, hasn't hurt them that much. Author Parker-Pope explains why.

The author is more or less non-judgmental about smoking. You won't be made to feel like a dog if you happen to smoke; she once smoked and understands what it's like to be "hooked." What you will find in "Cigarettes" is that it's compulsively readable, informative, fun, up-to-date, and global in its reach.

Americans live in a nation that outlaws certain drugs as too dangerous for public consumption. Nonetheless, a proven killer such as tobacco is readily available for any citizen over the age of eighteen. Tara Parker-Pope admirably deals with this maddening, if not hypocritical set of circumstances. The Wall Street reporter delves into the history of tobacco consumption from the early days of American history. Cotton was not the first crop requiring cheap labor in the colonies. No, it turns out that tobacco has that dubious honor. She therefore contends that the tobacco industry substantially underpinned the evil institution of slavery. Tobacco was even used to encourage Africans to betray their own to the slave traders. The author adds that tobacco played a significant role in America's revolt against the British crown. Abstract issues of personal freedom were at least partly interpreted by many colonists as a desire to lessen Great Britain's control of the tobacco markets.

Tobacco advertising has always emphasized the supposed sophistication and elite status of the user. Parker-Pope recounts an incident in the early part of the last century when an insightful public relations expert urged the Lucky Strike company to sponsor a Green Ball in New York for the purpose of enticing socialite women to be more receptive to the green color of its cigarette pack. Later members of the medical community were co-opted to allay the health concerns of an increasingly wary public. Deceitfulness has long been the standard practice of the tobacco industry. Status seeking and easily swayed youngsters are seduced by role models in the entertainment field to pass along this horror from one generation to the next. Also, the international corporate promoters of these death causing products are expanding their marketing operations to all corners of the globe. Apparently we have lost the ability to be ashamed and allow the exploitation of the less educated in the Third World communities. Missionary zeal was once perceived in a more positive manner. Now it has more sinister connotations.

Parker-Pope observes that the consumers are actually paying for the so-called tobacco court room financial settlements. These tobacco addicts merely go deeper into their wallets to make up the difference. She also agrees with my own cynical conclusion that the efforts of anti-smoking crusaders have been eviscerated by the massive financial payoffs. I suspect that the officials of the states agreeing to the settlements are guilty of shaking hands with the devil; the money is coming into their respective governmental coffers---and deep in their guts they hesitate to risk killing the goose laying the golden eggs. The tobacco industry has tacitly bribed our national leaders to pretend that staunch opposition still persists even when the evidence suggest otherwise. Outlawing cigarettes will probably cause more trouble than good. Prohibition inadvertently results in subsidizing organized crime. This, however, does not preclude other realistic actions that should be considered.

The author's work definitely deserves to be read by all concerned citizens. There are no easy answers to this national dilemma, but Ms. Parker-Pope assists us in further clarifying the issues. We owe her our gratitude.

"For 500 years, smokers and tobacco makers have risked torture and even death at the hands of tobacco's enemies, so it's unlikely that a bunch of lawyers and politicians and the looming threat of deadly disease will fell either the industry or the habit. When the smoke clears from the Tobacco Wars, the last man (or woman) standing may well be a smoker with a cigarette in his (or her) hands." "Parker-Pope deserves credit, because in a discussion as saturated with malice and falsehood as the cigarette debate, expressing even a banal truth requires courage."Do I need to say more?

Cigarettes: Anatomy Of An Industry provides an exploration of one of the biggest business successes of the century - this could have been reviewed in our business books section but is included here for its insights on health and economics. From the science of marketing cigarettes to packaging tobacco and government involvement, Cigarettes: Anatomy Of An Industry provides a detailed overview of the industry's growth and connections.

This short book is a good overview of the cigarette manufacturing industry. While it is not a history of tobacco, (and doesn't pretend to be) it does offer a brief look at how tobacco use came about and how it grew into the massive industry of today.

The focus of the book is on cigarettes, which are a large, but not the total component of tobacco companies. With a slant toward the financial aspects of the industry, the author covers most of the big events in cigarette history, including pricing, advertising, lawsuits and much more.

While a good book, it is getting dated and that can be seen by many of the numbers used. It may be time for a new edition or to drop the book from the catalog.

i purchased this book thinking it would be in the same vein as eric schlossers expose on the fast food industry "fast food nation" but i guess the tobacco industry is a lot less complicated, and less interesting. that being said, i wont blame the author for the boredom i felt while reading this book. basically, this little book covers everything you would expect it to, from tobacco companies lying about health risks to how they revolutionized advertising by appealing to psychological reasons people smoke (instead of "tastes great at a great price" type of advertising). there was nothing new revealed to me in this book (besides a bit of history of how the plant came to be used as it is), and i was disappointed that nothing was mentioned about tobacco companies in relation to marijuana and keeping marijuana illegal. there are many facts, charts, and graphs. i guess its good if you are doing a research project on the subject of cigarettes. if youre just reading for fun then i suggest you read jack herer's "the emperor wears no clothes" which is about marijuana...thats more fun than reading about cigarettes i assure you.