ABSTRACT
One of this book’s principal objectives is to explore the processes and reasons for tobacco’s pervasive global entrenchment. That entrenchment has many aspects to it, and there have been many books written about tobacco that have explored this phenomenon. Most, however, have adopted a contemporary perspective. The argument of this book is that the process of tobacco’s entrenchment has a profound historical dimension that is much more than simply a background to the contemporary issues. Indeed the usual explanations offered by contemporary commentators on the ‘tobacco problem’, such as the addictive properties of nicotine, central government demand for revenue through taxation, underdevelopment and underemployment in the Third World and the corporate strategies of tobacco manufacturers, have all been determined historically.
