The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco

For the ancient Mayans, Burns says, smoking was prayer, but when Rodrigo de Xerez, a crewmate of Columbus, returned to Spain, the Inquisitors saw what they assumed was the devil's fire spiraling from his nose and mouth—they confiscated de Xerez's land and jailed him. The weed fared better in England: Sir Walter Raleigh taught Queen Elizabeth to light up, and folks thought tobacco could protect them from the plague. In a genial social history that backhandedly glorifies this "first successful American export" while tracing its "mesmerizing" mystique, Burns (The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol ) demonstrates how the labor-intensive tobacco crop led to slavery, and how the YMCA withdrew its support from the Anti-Cigarette League and shipped millions of dollars' worth of cigarettes to GIs during WWI. Tobacco's detractors included Russia's 17th-century Czar Michael Feodorovich, who had third-time violators of his smoking ban beheaded, and Wayne McLaren, the famous face of the Marlboro man in print ads and on billboards who became a passionate antismoking advocate before his death at 51 from lung cancer. Burns is an able writer and researcher, but given the controversial nature of his topic, one would have hoped for more edge and attitude from the Fox News anchor. (Sept.)