Smoking in British Popular Culture 1800-2000: Perfect Pleasures (Studies in Popular Culture)

This book is a concise history of smoking in British popular culture from the early 19th century to the present day. 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. Combining a wide range of historical sources with examples drawn from film and popular literature, it provides a comprehensive social, cultural, and economic history of smoking. A concise history of smoking in British popular culture from the early nineteenth century to the present day.. Provides the historical backdrop to the current debates about the politics of tobacco and health, demonstrating that both pro- and anti-smokers have consistently failed to understand the position of smoking within popular culture.. Important themes explored 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.. Traces the production, promotion and consumption of tobacco as well as outlining the arguments that have variously opposed this ever-controversial drug.. Genuinely interdisciplinary, combining elements of social, cultural and economic history whilst contributing to debates in sociology and cultural studies, the anthropology of material culture, design history, medical history and public health policy.