Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Tobacco Capitalism : Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry / Peter Benson.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2011]Copyright date: ©2012Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (336 p.) : 19 halftones. 1 line illus. 2 mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691149202
  • 9781400840403
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 331.7/6337109756 23
LOC classification:
  • HD8039.T62 U625 2012eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction -- PART I. THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY, PUBLIC HEALTH, AND AGRARIAN CHANGE -- Chapter 1. Most Admired Company -- Chapter 2. The Jungle -- Chapter 3. Enemies of Tobacco -- PART II. INNOCENCE AND BLAME IN AMERICAN SOCIETY -- Chapter 4. Good, Clean Tobacco -- Chapter 5. El Campo -- Chapter 6. Sorriness -- Conclusion: Reflections on the Tobacco Industry (and American Exceptionalism) -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Tobacco Capitalism tells the story of the people who live and work on U.S. tobacco farms at a time when the global tobacco industry is undergoing profound changes. Against the backdrop of the antitobacco movement, the globalization and industrialization of agriculture, and intense debates over immigration, Peter Benson draws on years of field research to examine the moral and financial struggles of growers, the difficult conditions that affect Mexican migrant workers, and the complex politics of citizenship and economic decline in communities dependent on this most harmful commodity. Benson tracks the development of tobacco farming since the plantation slavery period and the formation of a powerful tobacco industry presence in North Carolina. In recent decades, tobacco companies that sent farms into crisis by aggressively switching to cheaper foreign leaf have coached growers to blame the state, public health, and aggrieved racial minorities for financial hardship and feelings of vilification. Economic globalization has exacerbated social and racial tensions in North Carolina, but the corporations that benefit have rarely been considered a key cause of harm and instability, and have now adopted social-responsibility platforms to elide liability for smoking disease. Parsing the nuances of history, power, and politics in rural America, Benson explores the cultural and ethical ambiguities of tobacco farming and offers concrete recommendations for the tobacco-control movement in the United States and worldwide.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction -- PART I. THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY, PUBLIC HEALTH, AND AGRARIAN CHANGE -- Chapter 1. Most Admired Company -- Chapter 2. The Jungle -- Chapter 3. Enemies of Tobacco -- PART II. INNOCENCE AND BLAME IN AMERICAN SOCIETY -- Chapter 4. Good, Clean Tobacco -- Chapter 5. El Campo -- Chapter 6. Sorriness -- Conclusion: Reflections on the Tobacco Industry (and American Exceptionalism) -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Tobacco Capitalism tells the story of the people who live and work on U.S. tobacco farms at a time when the global tobacco industry is undergoing profound changes. Against the backdrop of the antitobacco movement, the globalization and industrialization of agriculture, and intense debates over immigration, Peter Benson draws on years of field research to examine the moral and financial struggles of growers, the difficult conditions that affect Mexican migrant workers, and the complex politics of citizenship and economic decline in communities dependent on this most harmful commodity. Benson tracks the development of tobacco farming since the plantation slavery period and the formation of a powerful tobacco industry presence in North Carolina. In recent decades, tobacco companies that sent farms into crisis by aggressively switching to cheaper foreign leaf have coached growers to blame the state, public health, and aggrieved racial minorities for financial hardship and feelings of vilification. Economic globalization has exacerbated social and racial tensions in North Carolina, but the corporations that benefit have rarely been considered a key cause of harm and instability, and have now adopted social-responsibility platforms to elide liability for smoking disease. Parsing the nuances of history, power, and politics in rural America, Benson explores the cultural and ethical ambiguities of tobacco farming and offers concrete recommendations for the tobacco-control movement in the United States and worldwide.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)