The Tobacco Wars.

• Author: Blair, Roger D.
• Position: Review

By Walter Adams and James Brock. Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern College Publishing, 1998; Pp.xi, 209. $11.95 (paperback).

As a former student and a longtime admirer of Walter Adams, it is both an honor and a sad pleasure to review his latest and final book. We will all be poorer for his absence.

Walter Adams and James Brock have written three books in a Socratic dialogue style: Antitrust Economics on Trial, Adam Smith Goes to Moscow, and finally, The Tobacco Wars. These books address pressing policy issues in an entertaining, yet infuriating, way. The books entertain because the format provides instant point-counterpoint presentations of the central issues, in a sometimes humorous fashion. The barb is always out for the pomposity of academic expression. Those who cannot take some gentle ribbing should stay away from the Adams and Brock trilogy. But these books are also infuriating, not because of the jabs at our rhetoric, but because the books present both sides of these important issues without telling readers what they should conclude. Walter Adams believed that "learning is not a spectator sport." Apparently, Brock shares this view, because these books are good at making the reader weigh the pros and cons of the positions presented. This is not to say that the views of the authors cannot be discerned, but readers are drawn into making their own assessments. At times, one longs for an instructor's manual.

In The Tobacco Wars, Adams and Brock, both inveterate smokers, have addressed an extremely important public policy issue: what to do about smoking. As usual, the authors present the arguments on both sides of the issue in a dialogue format. In this case, the dialogue is a debate with many parts. Although there is no small measure of skepticism in the way that the pro-tobacco positions are presented, Adams and Brock still leave it to us to reach our own conclusions. As regards the wisdom of smoking, this inconclusiveness is trivial, but when it comes to freedom of choice and First Amendment issues, the inconclusiveness is a bit more difficult for the reader.

Part 1 of their five-part "series" provides interesting data and some historical background. Part 1 also mentions some of the changes that have occurred in recent years: smoking bans on airlines, limitations on advertising (especially advertising aimed at children), changes in tax policy, and antitrust issues (of course). This part provides a welcome foundation for what follows.

In Part...