Balkan Smoke: Tobacco and the Making of Modern Bulgaria
"This fascinating book explores the history of tobacco and tobacco culture in Bulgaria from the mid-19th century, when the country became partially and then fully independent from the Ottoman Empire, to the postcommunist present. Neuburger . . . argues convincingly that smoking and the production of tobacco products played an important—if not the key—part in Bulgaria's political, economic; and cultural modernization during this period. . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice(June 2013)"InBalkan Smoke: Tobacco and the Making of Modern Bulgaria, Neuburger masterfully demonstrates how the yellow-leafed plant has been at the core of building the historical narrative of modern day Bulgaria. More importantly, it also reveals in a particularly poignant way the complex dynamics of national consumption and global flows of goods and the ideologies they encapsulate. . . . Neuburger has a keen eye both for factual details and for cultural minutia, which reveals her remarkable ease and extreme, almost native-like, level of comfort and familiarity with the often hidden nuances of Bulgaria's less obvious cultural references."—Elza Ibroscheva,Consumption Markets & Culture"Mary C. Neuburger's brilliant new book recounts the social life of tobacco in the past two centuries.... It creatively utilizes the extensive Bulgarian literature on the tobacco industry and cultural works on everyday life to produce a highly original account of the making of Bulgarian modernity.... remarkably well-researched and inspiringly written work."—Maria Todorova,American Historical Review(Dec 2013)"Neuburger's work sharpens our understandings of Bulgarian economic history. . . . It is dense stuff, and I am terribly impressed with Neuburger’s ability to bring it all together in a coherent narrative. She has added a new thread to our understanding of the development of modern nationalism."—Cristofer Scarboro,Slavic Review(Spring 2014)"Mary C. Neuburger's use of tobacco as a device to examine issues in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bulgarian history brilliantly links topics that are rarely considered together: Eurocentrism, Protestant missionaries, the Modern Girl, irredentism, terrorist finances, party politics, and the fate of the Jews. Paradoxically, seeing these issues against a haze of tobacco smoke makes them stand out all the more clearly."—C. Wendy Bracewell, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, author ofThe Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic"WithBalkan Smoke, Mary C. Neuburger has established herself as a trailblazer in twentieth-century Eastern European history. She effectively exploits the history of one commodity, in this case tobacco, to illuminate a wide range of interconnected economic, cultural, and social transformations in communist Bulgaria. Using tobacco, Neuburger rethinks the functioning of communist economies and the potential for entrepreneurial creativity within them, the tension between economic motives and public health motives in defining a state's attempts to influence the behavior of its citizens, and the connections between southeastern Europe and the European/global economy."—Alison Frank, Harvard University, author ofOil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia"Mary C. Neuburger's fascinating account of the 'social life' of tobacco in Bulgaria analyzes both local and transnational trends in smoking from the long nineteenth century to the present. Evocative and elegantly written, this book traces the economic, political, and social Europeanization of Bulgaria and the Balkans through tobacco, from Ottoman Muslim coffeehouse culture to twenty-first-century practices of sociability. Neuberger locates the commodification of tobacco—'Bulgarian Gold'— in the dynamic and multifaceted environment of East-West encounters, commercial exchange, and urban cosmopolitan leisure practices in modernizing Bulgaria. This highly original book should attract a broad audience."—Nancy M. Wingfield, Northern Illinois University, author ofFlag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech"Balkan Smoketells the remarkable story of Bulgarian tobacco over the past 150 years. It takes us into coffeehouses and tobacco fields; it follows the trade routes that linked Bulgaria to Istanbul, Berlin, Moscow, and North Carolina. Tobacco, Mary C. Neuburger argues, drove Bulgarian culture, diplomacy, and trade. But tobacco also brought anxiety, instability, and violence in its train.Balkan Smokethus offers a highly original and very compelling account of modern Bulgaria."—Robert Nemes, Colgate University, author ofThe Once and Future Budapest"Mary C. Neuburger, already a preeminent scholar of the history of commodities, here examines the dogged Bulgarian attachment to the cigarette, past and present. She crafts a fascinating story that ranges from the biological effects of a puff to the workings of the global tobacco industry. Along the way she offers a compelling analysis of leisure, sociability, state transformation and individual agency in the twentieth century. This is a marvelously inventive, one-of-a-kind work from an enormously talented historian."—Maureen Healy, Lewis & Clark College, author ofVienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I