It is a bold move to give a book on the role of cigarettes in the 20th century the subtitle "The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America." Rise-and-fall stories, whether about empires, sports heroes, political leaders or business titans, make for a compelling narrative. But can a consumer product—one that "defined America," no less—serve as protagonist? That is the challenge Allan M. Brandt, a professor of the history of medicine atrnHarvard Medical School, sets for himself in his new book, The Cigarette Century. In it he tracks the emergence of smoking as a mass phenomenon in the United States, its growth to near-iconic cultural status and the increasing malevolence of its popular image toward the end of the century.
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机译：赋予一卷关于香烟在20世纪的作用的书的副标题是“定义美国的产品的兴衰，致命和持久性”，这是一个大胆的举动。无论是关于帝国，体育英雄，政治领袖还是商业巨头的兴衰故事，都引起了令人信服的叙述。但是，能否将消费产品（至少定义为“美国”）作为主角？这就是哈佛医学院医学院历史学教授艾伦·勃兰特（Allan M. Brandt）在他的新书《香烟世纪》中提出的挑战。在书中，他追踪了吸烟在美国的普遍现象的出现，其向近偶像文化地位的增长以及到本世纪末其流行形象的日益恶意。
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