Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization [Paperback]

Iain Gately's Tobacco is a sweeping cultural history of the world's most prevalent addiction, and it's probably the best book ever written on its subject. Gately begins in pre-Columbian America, where the natives made tobacco "their most popular gift to the rest of humanity," and continues through all the cantankerous smoking litigation of the 1990s. The story touches on just about every subject imaginable: tobacco in literature, the movies, and society. It would be wrong to call Gately an advocate of smoking, but he clearly takes pleasure, for example, in noting that Hitler's Nazis launched one of history's most vigorous anti-smoking initiatives. The book is full of delicious trivia: Many of Shakespeare's contemporaries smoked, but there's no evidence that the Bard himself did, and none of his plays make any mention of smoking; he "kept his writing a smoke-free zone." Nevertheless, reports Gately with a smirk, there is "archaeological evidence proving that smoking was going on around the Shakespeare household in Stratford-upon-Avon during his life." Smoking aficionados won't want to miss Tobacco, and it's a much healthier gift for them than a box of cigars. --John Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Here it is everything you ever wanted to know about tobacco, from Amerindian prehistory right up to the Clinton/Lewinsky cigar tryst. As Gately traces the role of tobacco in history's major military conflicts and cultural movements, he treats readers to a variety of brief lessons regarding Galenic vs. Chinese medicine, the colonization of the West Indies, the cultivation of tobacco by Australian aboriginals and African tribesmen, Scottish business expansion in the 17th century, the aesthetics of the "narghile" (water pipe) in Asia and much more. He examines both the familiar (peace pipes, chewing tobacco, cigars, cigarettes) and the arcane (techniques for snuffing, tobacco enemas) with appropriate thoroughness. Anyone interested in the origins of the smoking jacket, snuff horns, strike-anywhere matches, meerschaum and briar pipes, or curious about why most signers of the Declaration of Independence were tobacco farmers will not only enjoy this work, but come away with a larger understanding of why tobacco has been so important in human history. While Gately is explicit about the medical risks of tobacco, this global approach stressing the ubiquity of its use suggests it will remain part of our culture for generations to come. With irreverent wit and uncommon grace, Gately shares his enthusiasms with any reader brave enough to buy a book with the demon weed on its cover. A bonus appendix gives readers simple instructions on the cultivation of tobacco at home. Illus. (Jan.)Forecast: Handselling recommended especially to cultural history buffs (and those who reek of you-know-what) since this is a book that might otherwise not get the recognition it deserves.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Novelist Gately (The Assessor) presents an ambitious historical survey of humanity's love/hate relationship with tobacco. He traces the path the "Devil's weed" took after Native Americans offered Europeans their first nicotine hit. Gately pays particular attention to the evolving methods of ingesting tobacco, pays respect to the pleasurable ambience of the smoking experience, and even offers a final chapter on how to grow tobacco in your backyard. His tributes to tobacco are counterbalanced by evidence that smoking has sent many users to early graves. Yet he is very critical of many claims made by the antismoking industry, particularly the claim that secondary smoke is as harmful as direct inhalation. The book was originally published in London as Diva Nicotina, and the title change is indicative of the contents: Gately downplays the addictive power of nicotine and in the final analysis contends that 1.2 billion smokers could not be wrong. This volume is sparsely documented, and the reader is inclined to question many of Gately's statements, such as his contention that tobacco can "guard against cancer of the womb." Jordan Goodman's Tobacco in History (Routledge, 1994. reprint) offers a more balanced history. An optional purchase for academic and public libraries. Jim Doyle, Sara Hightower Regional Lib., Rome, GA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Tobacco's ubiquity in history, culture, fashion, and literature testifies to its imperviousness to all propaganda denouncing it, from King James I's antiweed screed, A Counterblaste to Tobacco, to contemporary lawsuits. According to Gately, people will always crave nicotine, despite the surgeon general's warnings. Just why they love to light up goes beyond the physical aspect of nicotine's stimulating effects. Gately's jaunty tour aims to elucidate the ineffable attraction of the drug. The sociability of smoking, with its implements and rituals, was plain if perplexing to the first Europeans, who were struck with wonderment over the elaborate calumets of Native Americans. Delivered by pipe, and subsequently via rolled cigars, powdered snuff, and cigarettes, tobacco has generated elaborate customs of combustion that Gately, chaw often firmly in cheek, risibly regales. An inspiration to writers, a consolation to soldiers, a seduction to lovers, the leaf has also had a munificent economic life. An entertaining story of humanity's Faustian bargain with tobacco. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.