Product Description

Cigarettes chronicles the controversies of a 350-billion-dollar industry, telling the fast-paced business story of cigarettes—from seed to smoke—that surprises as it entertains. In a book Publishers Weekly calls "an absorbing and informative history of cigarettes," Parker-Pope provides "up-to-date coverage of the recent tobacco industry litigation [that] is not only concise and accessible, but illuminating." The author, who follows the tobacco industry for the Wall Street Journal, offers a unique spin on a much-covered topic, examining the commercial aspect of an industry that became the biggest business success story of the twentieth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1426986 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Observing that "the cigarette is the only consumer product that, when used as the manufacturer has intended, can be deadly," Wall Street Journal reporter Parker-Pope writes an absorbing and informative history of cigarettes, addressing why we start smoking, why we continue and what it costs us, while simultaneously charting the growth of an industry that boasts profit margins as high as 40% to 50%. With its extraordinary profits, low-cost product and loyal and expandable customer base, the cigarette industry, she claims, is the envy of modern business, though not all industries can hope to manufacture a product that is as addictive. Since nobody naturally craves nicotine, the industry has had to persuade its customers to buy something they don't really need--a conundrum that has been handily resolved with $5 billion worth of seductive advertising that sells $53 billion worth of cigarettes per year in the U.S. alone, according to Parker-Pope. Her up-to-date coverage of the recent tobacco industry litigation is not only concise and accessible, but illuminating about tobacco companies' ability to use the litigation to stay in business, reduce their future liability and increase sales. While business may proceed as usual in the cigarette industry and the ranks of smokers may grow worldwide, Parker-Pope makes certain that her readers cannot ignore that once a person becomes a regular smoker, nicotine becomes such a necessary part of the body's chemistry that only 10% of smokers can successfully quit, that in 1999 smokers spent $730 million on smoke cessation products such as patches and gum, that 3.5 million people worldwide die annually of smoking-related ailments and that Americans spend $50 billion each year on smoking-related health care. Illus. (Feb.) Forecast: Jacketed in an eye-catching cigarette pack design and less intimidating in girth than other recent chronicles of the cigarette industry, this slim and hard-hitting report--part everything-you-needed-to-know-about-cigarettes and part documentary expose--could ride the wave of continuing public concern about cigarette manufacturers and their advertising techniques.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This book has great possibilities, as it draws together the history of tobacco with the story of modern marketing efforts to get people hooked on smoking, the emergence of health issues, and the legal battle over the massive costs of tobacco-related death and disability. Unfortunately, journalist Parker-Pope (Wall Street Journal) attempts all this in 200 pages of breezy prose filled with extraordinarily simplified analysis. Her historical treatment is at best sketchy and sometimes highly suspect. At one point, she comes very close to implying that tobacco was a significant cause of the Revolutionary War. She relies almost exclusively on "tobacco historians" rather than searching more broadly for perspectives on the emergence of tobacco within the larger agricultural economy and society. Cigarettes does have some useful points, including a nice summary of the evolution of the health issue during the 20th century, but the book generally proves to be disjointed and disorganized. Although it never attempts to match Richard Kluger's massive Ashes to Ashes (LJ 6/15/96. o.p.), we still await a brief alternative. Not recommended.ACharles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Adding to the never-ending controversy of big tobacco companies and the selling of cigarettes is this examination of the $49 billion industry by a Wall Street Journal reporter. In what she calls a primer on a business that is a paragon of the capitalistic ideal, Parker-Pope begins with a brief history of cigarettes and blames Christopher Columbus for introducing them to European society. She then discusses the cigarette economy and the cultivation, packaging, and distribution of the product. The author examines marketing and advertising campaigns and the health hazards of smoking, claiming that the tobacco industry has adopted a strategy of cover-up and misinformation to suppress many of the findings that link smoking and disease. She discusses antismoking crusaders dating back to the 1600s in England; King James I called it a stinking habit, and in the early 1900s nonsmokers began to complain about secondhand smoke. The big tobacco companies all come under fire in Parker-Pope's probing study of why we smoke and why we shouldn't light up. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Does Everything Well
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.

Our Nation's Schizophrenic Moral Dilemma
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.

From marketing cigarettes to packaging tobacco
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.