"The great cause of global health is in Robert Proctor's debt. Golden Holocaust is a model of impassioned scholarly research and advocacy. As Proctor so powerfully demonstrates, the time has come to hold the tobacco industry accountable for the massive disease, debility, and death that they produce around the world."--Allan M. Brandt, author ofThe Cigarette Century
"Robert Proctor unpacks the sad history of an industrial fraud. His tightly reasoned exploration touches on all topics on which the tobacco makers lied repeatedly to Congress and the public."--Don Kennedy, President Emeritus, Stanford University and former Editor, Science
"This book is a remarkable compendium of evil. It will keep you spinning from page one through the last with a detailed description of how one of the most notorious industries in American history deceived and manipulated the public, the politicians, and the scientific community into allowing an age-old toxin to be breathed directly into the lungs of millions of Americans. It is the type of book that makes you wonder how, in God's name, this could have happened?"-David Rosner, author ofDeceit and Denial
"Proctor powerfully documents how a small number of tobacco companies caused a tragic, global epidemic. His account of this history and of the 'lessons learned' is relevant to the ongoing effort to end the tobacco epidemic and to efforts to control emerging pandemics of non-communicable diseases." --Jonathan M. Samet, M.D., M.S., Director, Institute for Global Health, University of Southern California
"Proctor weaves together the public historical record with inside details and insights from thousands of once secret industry documents. Anyone who cares about health, deception, science or politics will learn something new from this book."-Stanton A. Glantz, Professor of Medicine, UC San Francisco, and author of The Cigarette Papers
"A powerful indictment of the world's deadliest industry"-John R. Seffrin, PhD, Chief Executive Officer, American Cancer Society
"By carefully analyzing formerly secret industry documents, Proctor has shown how cigarette manufacturers knew that the "filters" on virtually all cigarettes sold today are utterly fraudulent. His call for a ban is likely to change how we think about such devices; this excellent book is a must read for tobacco control and environmental activists alike."--Thomas E. Novotny, MD MPH, Former US Assistant Surgeon General and CEO, Cigarette Butt Pollution Project.
"Scholarly yet eminently readable, indeed gripping, this book asks us to consider what the end game for tobacco might look like. A must-read for policy makers and public health officials, and for anyone struggling against the tobacco industry in the field."--Professor Judith Mackay, Senior Advisor, World Lung Foundation, Hong Kong, China SAR"
"The machine-rolled cigarette is the single most deadly consumer product ever made. Proctor's powerful, witty, and wide-ranging book shows how we came to accept as normal the promotion and use of products that have caused a global epidemic of disease and death. But more importantly, he outlines a way to end this grim chapter in human history."--Ruth E. Malone, RN, PhD, FAAN, Editor,Tobacco Control
"This is the most important book on smoking in fifty years. Proctor's unique mix of scholarship, readability, wit and political understanding tells a no-holds-barred story with conclusions that governments cannot afford to ignore. It will change the course of public health history."--Professor Mike Daube, President, Australian Council on Smoking and Health
"Proctor draws masterfully from a vast archive of documents wrested from the industry, including many never before discussed, and mounts an unforgettable case about what the tobacco industry has done and what we must do about it. This is the book to help us understand what we must do to s
Industry Reviews
"Draws on previously confidential industry documents and Proctor's own experience as the first historian to testify in court about [industry] lies. What lies? How deep into the pleural linings did they go? All the way." Harper's Magazine "Lays out in head-shaking detail how a handful of companies painstakingly designed, produced, and mass-marketed the most lethal product on the planet." Mother Jones "[A] monumental and sobering indictment." Nature "Proctor documents a breadth and depth of the industry's duplicitous actions that is astounding." Science (AAAS) "A nearly 800-page book that begins as the Bible of the twentieth-century cigarette industry only to end as its millennial counterblaste." -- Joshua Cohen Harper's "Proctor challenges his readers to conceptualize a much happier and healthier world in which the manufacture and sale of cigarettes is prohibited." The Huffington Post "A landmark study in medicine and the history of science, and of an industry [Proctor] describes as 'evil.'" Toronto Globe & Mail "Proctor's extensive use of previously secret tobacco industry documents makes his case convincing, even compelling." -- Katherine E. Kenny Sociology/Science Studies, University of California San Diego Global Public Health "An invaluable reference for historians interested in the tobacco industry, health and medicine, or marketing in the twentieth century." -- Karen Miller Russell, University of Georgia Jrnl Of American History "A comprehensive and devastating account of tobacco industry perfidy in promoting the sale of its deadly cigarettes." -- Barron H. Lerner, New York University School of Medicine Bulletin Of The History Of Medicine "A historian's testimony on his own terms... Entertaining and hard-hitting." -- Carol Benedict, Georgetown University American Historical Review "Engaging, inexhaustible with information, and driven." Chronicle Of Higher Education "A passionate work and not for the faint of heart." American Journal Of Epidemiology "Proctor's book will be of great interest ... it debunks fraudulent industry claims past and present, provides credible arguments for banning cigarettes, and delineates steps to take before abolition is politically possible... For historians, Proctor's book particularly calls for serious conversation about ethics and best practices in our era of decreased public support of universities and rising dependence on corporate donors." -- Nan Enstad Journal of the History of Medicine