Podcast Summary: Behind the Bastards – "CZM Rewind: Part One: How Cigarettes Invented Everything"

Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Robert Evans (B:), with guests James Stout (C:) and Sophie Lichterman (A:)
Podcast: Behind the Bastards (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)

Episode Overview

In this rebroadcast, Robert Evans, joined by James Stout and producer Sophie Lichterman, embarks on a sprawling, irreverent, and incisive journey through the extraordinary but mostly-forgotten history of the cigarette. Rather than focusing solely on Big Tobacco’s coverups, the episode traces the surprising ways in which cigarettes helped invent key facets of modern life. The hosts explore how the rise of cigarettes spurred major developments: from patent law, collectible cards, and advertising, to monopolies, global commodities, and even the modern concept of middle management.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter and Tone

• The trio opens with self-referential jokes, British currency humor, and raunchy royal gossip before segueing into the main topic.

“Welcome once again to Behind the Bastards, the only podcast where the host regularly says that his show is cash money.” — Robert Evans (00:56)

• Conversation is loose, comedic, and at times gleefully irreverent, setting a tone of dark historical curiosity mixed with sarcasm.

2. Cigarette’s Early History: Ritual & Pre-Colonial Cultures

[06:10–11:50]

• Tobacco's Origins:
  • Predates European contact by centuries. Mayan people used it for religious rituals as early as the 1st century BC, with the practice spreading throughout the Americas.
  • Methods included smoking, snorting (as snuff), and chewing.

“Archeologists can confirm that by at latest the 1st century BC, the Maya people of Central America were using tobacco as a part of their religious rituals.” — Robert (06:11)

• Ritualistic Use:
  • Typically not a daily habit; most usage was ceremonial.
  • Stronger forms (nicotina rustica) used in ways that could be hallucinogenic (14:00).
• Uses Beyond Consumption:
  • Tobacco as an insect repellent, tranquilizer, and in various dubious “medicinal” remedies.

3. Cigarettes Enter Europe and Spread

[17:01–21:13]

• First Encounters:
  • Christopher Columbus sees tobacco in Hispaniola in 1492 and observes both nose-pipe ("snorkel") and rudimentary cigarette forms.
• European Adoption:
  • The Portuguese begin European cultivation; tobacco quickly overcomes initial suspicion and puritanical objections.
• Class Distinctions:
  • Pipes and cigars reserved for the wealthy or home settings; snuff becomes the working person’s method, being convenient and cheap.

4. Mass Production & The Bonsack Machine: Cigarettes for the Masses

[37:20–43:00]

• James Buchanan Duke’s Revolution:
  • Duke recognizes the profit potential of cheap, mass-produced cigarettes for the urban poor.
  • Key innovation: The Bonsack machine, which mechanizes cigarette rolling.

“During his first year of production, using his team of imported hand rollers, duke turned out 9.8 million cigarettes. In contrast, using the Bonsack machines enabled him to produce 744 million cigarettes in 1888.” — Robert cites Journal of Antiques (39:00)

• Workforce:
  • Migration of skilled cigarette rollers (often women), but ultimately replaced quickly by automation.

5. Birth of Modern Advertising, Collectibles, & Targeted Marketing

[44:55–54:00]

• Creating Demand via Advertising:
  • Duke faces the challenge of convincing more people, especially children, to smoke.
  • Innovation: Inserting collectible trading cards (sports, landmarks, and risqué images) in cigarette packs.

“Kids start smoking to collect trading cards. That’s where juvenile smoking starts in the United States.” — Robert (47:03)

• Marketing to Youth:
  • The collectible strategy is wildly successful, driving youth smoking and laying groundwork for all future “collectibles” marketing (e.g., baseball cards, McDonald’s Happy Meals, Pokémon).

“We owe Pokémon to cigarettes.” — James (49:15)

• Expansion of Advertising:
  • Massive ad budgets ignite the first national billboard wars, saturating the landscape with visual advertising.

6. Monopoly, Patent Law, & Middle Management: The Modern Corporation is Born

[54:23–60:50]

• American Tobacco Company:
  • Duke orchestrates mergers to form an effective monopoly, controlling 90% of US cigarette sales by 1890.
  • Pioneers use of patents for corporate power—a practice that would permeate across industries.

“What he’s done here is invent the modern usage of patents by corporations for corporate advantage.” — Robert, quoting Alan Brandt, “The Cigarette Century” (43:00)

• Industrial Organization:
  • Duke’s vertically integrated company invents the American model of the megacorporation, complete with salaried executives and middle managers.

“In short, he invented the middle manager.” — Robert (57:41)

• Collapse of Small Producers:
  • Cigarette business consolidates, crushing unions and independent rollers; cigars remain an artisanal outlier.

7. Globalization & Iconic Branding

[60:01–62:50]

• Worldwide Expansion:
  • Duke partners with Imperial Tobacco (UK) to create British American Tobacco, aggressively exporting the branded, standardized American cigarette worldwide.

“He has invented the idea that... everyone in the world consumes the same product the same way.” — Robert (61:37)

• Commodification:
  • Cigarettes become one of the first truly global, branded consumer goods, preceding — and predicting — chains like McDonald's and Starbucks.

8. Antitrust & The Limits of Regulation

[62:45–67:41]

• Facing the Government:
  • After dominating the market, Duke's trust is broken up by the Sherman Antitrust Act, but due to vertical integration, competition is not restored; it’s simply replaced by an oligopoly.

“So he’s... gone from a monopoly to an oligopoly... That’s what the DOJ succeeds in doing.” — Robert (67:43)

• Legacy:
  • Duke pivots to the electricity industry; his substantial endowment establishes Duke University.
• The Point of No Return:
  • By the time the trust is dissolved, the structures and attitudes enabling mass marketing and corporate dominance are entrenched.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Branding and Masculinity:
  "It's rather tragic that the cultural inheritance of that today... It's like guys who think that they should enjoy cigars. The entire Republican Party." — James (11:55)
• On Collectibles and Smoking:
  “Kids are like trying to collect these picture books and smoking 12,000 cigarettes. That is how you catch them all.” — James (53:26)
• On Patent Law:
  “Because a lot of medical patents and stuff, like, works on the same fucking idea.” — James (43:13)
• On the Scale of the Disaster:
  “The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization. It killed about 100 million people in the 20th century.” — Robert citing Robert Proctor (70:08)
• On Middle Management & Class Structure:
  “What are a lot of people in the middle class? They're fucking middle managers.” — Robert (57:53)

Timestamps of Major Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|-------| | 06:10 | Early ritual and medicinal uses of tobacco | | 11:10 | Columbus discovers tobacco use in the Caribbean | | 17:01 | Tobacco's adoption in Europe, class distinctions | | 37:20 | The Bonsack machine & rise of mass production | | 44:55 | Trading cards, youth marketing, and collectibles | | 54:23 | American Tobacco Company & monopoly formation | | 60:01 | Globalization, British American Tobacco | | 62:45 | Antitrust breakup, emergence of modern corporate structure | | 70:08 | Health reckoning: cigarettes' global body count |

Episode’s Overarching Message

Cigarettes didn’t just kill—they helped invent modernity.
From marketing to monopolies, brand strategy, patents, globalized commerce, middle-management bureaucracy, and even youth collectibles, Duke and other tobacco titans pioneered the playbook that corporations and advertisers use today. The social disaster wrought by this innovation, though, is staggering: 100 million deaths, generational addiction, an advertising-saturated society, and a consumer culture shaped, in no small part, by the desire to sell more cigarettes.

For Further Listening

• The story continues in "Part Two," where the coverups, medical revelations, and further societal shifts are likely explored.
• For those interested, guest James Stout and Robert Evans also host "It Could Happen Here," a podcast about how things fall apart and how people rebuild.

Behind the Bastards blends gallows humor, pop culture, and deep research to make historical evil viscerally real—and at times, unexpectedly hilarious.

(End of summary)