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

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Benson, Peter,
• MitwirkendeR: Brandt, Allan M.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2011]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (336 p.) :; 19 halftones. 1 line illus. 2 maps.
• Other title: 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
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781400840403; 9783110442502
• DOI: 10.1515/9781400840403
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Peter Benson.

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.