Smoke in Their Eyes

Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars

Michael Pertschuk

• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN:
  9780826513939
  9780826513908
• eBook ISBN:
  9780826591494
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Advocacy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The classic American struggle between the public interest and corporate interests is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the decades-long struggle between the tobacco industry and advocates for public health. The failure of the "global settlement" legislation is now viewed by many public health experts as an historic missed opportunity, and in this extraordinary book, Smoke in Their Eyes, Michael Pertschuk brilliantly describes the forces brought to bear.

A lifelong public health leader and tobacco control advocate, Pertschuk provides uncommon insight into the movement and its opposition. Questions that reveal themselves here can be applied to public advocacy as a whole: how can movement leaders gauge and best employ popular support? Who has legitimacy to speak on behalf of a particular public cause? And perhaps most crucially, how is it possible for those whose cause is a moral one to strike political compromise? With a narrative as compelling as the issues it raises, Smoke in Their Eyes will be of great interest to everyone from students of public advocacy and political science to general readers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I: Leading toward Settlement
• Part II: The Settlement
• Part III: The Rise and Fall of the McCain Bill
• Part IV: Lessons from the Settlement and Its Aftermath
• Conclusion: With a Little Bit of Luck
• Afterword: Lessons of the Tobacco Wars
• Epilogue
• Chronology of Key Events
• Acknowledgments
• Index