Whereas most crops drive farmers apart as they compete for the best prices, the price controls on tobacco bring growers together. The result is a culture unlike any other in America, one often forgotten or overlooked as federal and state governments fight over the spoils of the tobacco settlement. Tobacco Culture describes the process of raising a crop of burley from the perspective and experience of the farmers themselves. In the process of gathering information for the book, the authors performed most steps in the tobacco production process, from dropping plants, burning seedbeds, topping, and cutting to stripping and baling the finished product. Van Willigen and Eastwood document both present practices and historical developments in tobacco farming at the very moment a way of life stands poised for dramatic change. In addition to growing practices, the authors found other common threads linking growers and tobacco producing regions. Where tobacco is grown, it often becomes the major cash crop and carries the health of the economy. Farmer Oscar Richardson states, "It's bread and butter. It's the industry of the community, the state as a whole.... You take tobacco out of Kentucky and this farmland wouldn't be worth a nickel." Combining cultural anthropology and oral history, John van Willigen and Susan Eastwood have created a remarkable portrait of the heart of the burley belt in Central Kentucky.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

The health and economic costs of tobacco use in military and veteran populations are high. In 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) make recommendations on how to reduce tobacco initiation and encourage cessation in both military and veteran populations. In its 2009 report, Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations, the authoring committee concludes that to prevent tobacco initiation and encourage cessation, both DoD and VA should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.

Since its publication in 1991, Entrepreneurship and Self-Help among Black Americans has become a classic work, influencing the study of entrepreneurship and, more importantly, revitalizing a research tradition that places new ventures at the very center of success for black Americans. This revised edition updates and enhances the work by bringing it into the twenty-first century. John Sibley Butler traces the development of black enterprises and other community organizations among black Americans from before the Civil War to the present. He compares these efforts to other strong traditions of self-help among groups such as Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, Greek Americans, and exciting new research on the Amish and the Pakistani. He also explores how higher education is already a valued tradition among black self-help groups—such that today their offspring are more likely to be third and fourth generation college graduates. Butler effectively challenges the myth that nothing can be done to salvage America's underclass without a massive infusion of public dollars, and offers a fresh perspective on those community based organizations and individuals who act to solve local social and economic problems.