Cigarettes, Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780226533315)

Traditional narratives of capitalist change often rely on the myth of the willful entrepreneur from the global North who transforms the economy and delivers modernity--for good or ill--to the rest of the world. With Cigarettes, Inc., Nan Enstad upends this story, revealing the myriad cross-cultural encounters that produced corporate life before World War II.

In this startling account of innovation and expansion, Enstad uncovers a corporate network rooted in Jim Crow segregation that stretched between the United States and China and beyond. Cigarettes, Inc. teems with a global cast--from Egyptian, American, and Chinese entrepreneurs to a multiracial set of farmers, merchants, factory workers, marketers, and even baseball players, jazz musicians, and sex workers. Through their stories, Cigarettes, Inc. accounts for the cigarette's spectacular rise in popularity and in the process offers nothing less than a sweeping reinterpretation of corporate power itself.

Author: Nan Enstad
ISBN-10: 022653331X
ISBN-13: 9780226533315
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 12/10/2018
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2019