Smoking in British popular culture 1800–2000

A concise history of smoking in British popular culture from the early-19th century to the end of the 20th century. It explores the culture of the pipe and the cigar in the 19th century, the role of the cigarette in the mass market economy of the early-20th century, and the politics of smoking and health since the 1950s. Hilton argues that a particular culture of smoking celebrated at the end of the 19th century, together with certain economic and political forces, came to dominate the meaning of tobacco within popular culture, and acted as an important bulwark against state intervention in the sphere of public health. By combining a wide range of historical sources with examples drawn from film and popular literature to provide a comprehensive social, cultural and economic history of smoking, the book traces the production, promotion and consumption of tobacco as well as outlining the arguments that have variously opposed this ever-controversial drug. Important themes explored include the importance of consumption to constructions of masculinity and femininity, the role of the state in the official regulation of the "minor vices", the morality of consumption and the position of scientific knowledge within popular culture.