A landmark narrative of an epic legal battle, Civil Warriors is the gripping behind-the-scenes account of how one tenacious lawyer led the charge against the titans of the tobacco industry.

Drawing on five years of eyewitness reporting, thousands of pages of internal documents, and riveting firsthand stories of plaintiffs, lawyers, jurors, and scientists, Civil Warriors weaves the compelling story of attorney Ron Motley, who, along with other die-hard lawyers, scientists, and tobacco-busters, fought tirelessly to bring the tobacco industry to justice.

Taking us onto the front lines of Motley’s crusade, investigative journalist Dan Zegart follows the attorney to a dangerous underworld where maverick scientists and corporate whistle-blowers step from the shadows to reveal the truth behind the industry “spin.”

We meet the unforgettable cast of characters that draw Motley on toward his goals ... the mysterious ex-Reynolds employee known as “Deep Cough,” who told where evidence on nicotine-laced tobacco was hidden ... the researchers who proved the addictive nature of nicotine — and were advised by the FBI to check their cars for bombs every morning.

And we witness how Ron Motley led his quest for truth, justice, and hundred-billion-dollar awards ... to penetrate, finally, the “control room of the conspiracy,” an inner circle of lawyers who protected tobacco for thirty years. Civil Warriors is at once a grand adventure and a towering work of investigative journalism — an eye-opening report on the way justice really works in America today.

This collection includes essays by eleven leading public health experts, economists, physicians, political scientists, and lawyers, whose activities encompass Congressional testimonies, Surgeon General's reports on youth smoking, and clinical trials for drugs for smoking cessation. They analyze specific strategies that have been used to influence tobacco use, including taxation, regulation of advertising and promotion, regulation of indoor smoking, control of youth access to cigarettes and other tobacco products, litigation, and subsidies of smoking cessation, and set them against the latest scientific findings about tobacco and the changing cultural and political setting against which policy decisions are being made.

This collection includes essays by eleven leading public health experts, economists, physicians, political scientists, and lawyers, whose activities encompass Congressional testimonies, Surgeon General's reports on youth smoking, and clinical trials for drugs for smoking cessation. They analyze specific strategies that have been used to influence tobacco use, including taxation, regulation of advertising and promotion, regulation of indoor smoking, control of youth access to cigarettes and other tobacco products, litigation, and subsidies of smoking cessation, and set them against the latest scientific findings about tobacco and the changing cultural and political setting against which policy decisions are being made.

An exploration of the rise of the crop strain that came to dominate the American tobacco industry and its toll on the Southern landscape that produced it Drew A. Swanson has written an "environmental" history about a crop of great historical and economic significance: American tobacco. A preferred agricultural product for much of the South, the tobacco plant would ultimately degrade the land that nurtured it, but as the author provocatively argues, the choice of crop initially made perfect agrarian as well as financial sense for southern planters. Swanson, who brings to his narrative the experience of having grown up on a working Virginia tobacco farm, explores how one attempt at agricultural permanence went seriously awry. He weaves together social, agricultural, and cultural history of the Piedmont region and illustrates how ideas about race and landscape management became entangled under slavery and afterward. Challenging long-held perceptions, this innovative study examines not only the material relationships that connected crop, land, and people but also the justifications that encouraged tobacco farming in the region.