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This book provides the first comprehensive history of smokeless tobacco consumption from 1550 through the middle of the 20th century in Europe and North America. Focusing throughout on the individual consumer of tobacco, author Jan Rogonzinski presents and analyzes consumption data and summarizes the economic and other factors that have affected consumer choices. Of particular significance is a chapter on the governmental regulation of the marketing of tobacco that indicates an economic linkage between the new and the old worlds in the use of state-granted monopolies to market tobacco in Europe. The only study to make use of existing primary sources on tobacco consumption, marketing, and regulation, this volume is both a major contribution to the historical literature and an objective and readable account of consumer attitudes toward a substance whose impact on society continues to stir frequent and heated debate.

Following an introductory chapter that provides a broad historical overview of smokeless tobacco consumption, Rogonzinski presents a brief, nontechnical description of the tobacco plant and its many varieties. He then explains the manufacturing processes that have been associated with each type of tobacco use and traces the early history of these practices through an examination of the literary evidence. The chapter on governmental policies toward tobacco cultivation and marketing shows that, from the very beginning, governments have tried to control or influence the production, manufacture, pricing, and consumption of tobacco products--policies that have never been effective. The next group of chapters analyze the evolution of consumer tobacco preferences by nation and region and includes a separate chapter on smokeless tobacco in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. A glossary, bibliography, and index complete the volume.