Reviews and Praise
“Vaping gets all the attention now, but Milov’s thorough study reminds us that smoking has always intersected with the government, for better or worse.”—The New York Times Book Review
An impressive work of scholarship evincing years of spadework… A well-told story. Milov has an eye for detail.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A nuanced and ultimately devastating indictment of government complicity with the worst excesses of American capitalism. The Cigarette looks beyond individual consumers and their choices and aims its penetrating gaze straight at the larger phenomena shaping all of our lives: the exigencies of war, the rise of organized interest groups, the fall of government regulators, and the immense, unseen influence of big business.”—Scott W. Stern, The New Republic
“Milov offers insights into the way tobacco companies and their lobbyists exploited America’s federal system to slow down and weaken efforts to cut cigarette use despite growing evidence of the harm it causes… If you are looking for a case study in how regulation and politics shape the US consumer market, The Cigarette more than meets the bill.”—Financial Times
“Milov manages to bring fresh insight into how the industry’s power hooked government treasuries, the advertising business and scientists for hire, to trump public health for so long… What Milov adds is a nuanced account of the interplay between corporate machinations and government support for the industry from the 1930s until very recently.”—Nature
The Cigarette: A Political History (Harvard: 2019)
Awards: Winner, 2020 PROSE Award in US/North American History, American Association of University Publishers
Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize-History
Finalist, Hagley Prize of the Business History Association
Smithsonian Magazine, Best History Book of 2019
Reviewed in: New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, New Republic, The Financial Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Nature, The Lancet
Buy from Harvard University Press or your local independent bookstore.
Academic Articles and ESsays