Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris

No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes — mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product — with such sweep and enlivening detail.

Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process — financial, social, psychological, medical, political, and legal — are woven together in a riveting narrative. The key characters are the top corporate exec…