Nicotine Lady: A Cultural History of Tobacco

Author: (English) Ian Gatley
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Why Smoke? I was unknowingly reminded of my habits when I was in my late teens. At that time, I lived in Hong Kong, where smoking was very common, like a human instinct rather than a habit. I first started thinking about this question when traveling with a non-smoking friend in southeastern China. She came from ancient civilizations in South America, charming, exhilarating, yet full of deception and hidden danger; she had been loved, hated, and banned, yet still possessed too much allure; she posed as a witch, as a healer, but was actually just a deadly poison. From the Andes Mountains to outer space, from magical elixirs to fashion symbols, from spiritual messengers to sexual mediums, from the resentment of tyrants to the preferences of presidents, from global currencies to health killers—was she a sorceress or a butcher? Was she inspiring people or enslaving them? This book takes you into the world of the "Nicotine Lady" and tells the story of the most widely consumed and highly taxed lethal substance on our planet—tobacco.