JOSHUA KNELMAN is an award-winning arts and investigative journalist and editor. He was a founding member of The Walrus magazine. His writing has appeared in The Walrus, Toronto Life, TORO, Saturday Night, CBCarts.ca, the National Post, Quill & Quire, and The Globe and Mail. His debut true crime bestseller, Hot Art, won both the Arthur Ellis Award and the Edna Staebler Award and was successfully published in Canada, the US, and Korea with attention from Vanity Fair to Details to Playboy Magazine. His first book, the co-edited anthology Four Letter Word, sold in ten countries across various publishers. Josh lives in Toronto.
“You’ll inhale this tell-all book about the tobacco industry and
never look at a No Smoking sign the same way again!”
—Margaret Atwood, via Twitter
“This is storytelling at its best. Wry observation, compelling
narrative, fascinating characters, page-turning writing, and an
age-old question driving it all: how is it that those who profit
from harm get away with it, even when everyone knows what they are
up to? Illusion is the answer, says Joshua Knelman—the craft of its
practitioners, and the ready acceptance of its targets. That is
Firebrand's story about big tobacco. It is as thrilling for its
revelations as it is sobering for its conclusions.”
—Joel Bakan, author of The New Corporation: How ‘Good’
Corporations are Bad for Democracy
“Firebrand is a beautifully written, riveting tale of one man’s
journey into the world of gilded evil that has seduced billions,
enticing them into the embrace of the deadliest product ever
invented. Joshua Knelman is a gifted storyteller, guiding us
through the moral forensics of this goliath of death and pleasure
as it takes over the soul of one of those who entered its
portals.”
—Martyn Burke, Peabody Award–winning film director of Under Fire:
Journalists in Combat
“Yes, this is about the slick maneuvering of international
cigarette companies. But it’s also about how corporations navigate
legislation, and how policy is never as clear-cut as it
looks—especially through the eyes of a lawyer. Firebrand is
addictive.”
—Jeff Rubin, former Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets, and
author of The Expendables
“One of the year’s most remarkable books, [Firebrand] brilliantly
untangles what Knelman calls ‘the tobacco paradox’ — how the
tobacco trade thrives as much, if not more, than it ever has — and
its many ironies.”
—Toronto Star
“Ever wondered why the most dangerous consumer product ever
invented—the cigarette—is still legally available for sale? Joshua
Knelman takes us deep inside the global tobacco industry to reveal
a story of corporate greed, international intrigue, and the
complicity of public policy in the face of big money. Firebrand
offers a compelling case study in our addiction to capitalism, in a
book that will make your heart race and your blood boil.”
—Andrew Westoll, RBC Taylor Prize–winning author of The Chimps of
Fauna Sanctuary
“The most fun book on the tobacco business since Christopher
Buckley’s Thank You for Smoking, with the added virtue of being
grounded in real experience.”
—Washington Examiner
“How has the tobacco industry 'managed to survive decades of
intense and sustained assault by the medical and scientific
establishment, and from governments around the world'? In this
entertaining and occasionally enraging investigation, journalist
Knelman (Hot Art) seeks to answer that question . . . Packed with
colorful insider details and nuanced analysis, this is a
stimulating tell-all.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Knelman lights up every deeply-reported and finely-observed
chapter of Firebrand with wit and insight. A rollicking and
riveting insider’s tour of an insidious global industry.”
—Rachel Giese, author of Boys: What it Means to Become a Man
“As addictive as the subject matter, Knelman’s storytelling
breathes intrigue, high-drama, and humour on to every
page, while guiding us through the nebulous business of a killer
industry. One helluva good read.”
—Garvia Bailey, broadcaster and co-founder, Media Girlfriends
“WARNING: Firebrand is a thriller told from deep inside global
capitalism’s secret chambers, where few of us ever get to tread.
The story will make your palms sweat and your heart
race, a staggering achievement.”
—Richard Poplak, author of Paydirt: What the Search for Gold
has Cost the World
“Firebrand is a brilliant insider’s look at the shadowy
jurisdictions and sly legal loopholes that have helped a global
pariah like the tobacco industry not only survive but thrive. A
captivating narrative told at a thriller’s pace, it’s a master
class in how the international corporate world really works—a
triumph in business storytelling.”
—Marci McDonald, award-winning journalist and author of The
Armageddon Factor
“Informative and addictive, Firebrand is an insider's view of the
high stakes billion dollar international business of big tobacco
that reads like a great conversation at a bar. From the backstreets
of London to a dubious bar in Kazakhstan, to a Formula 1 racetrack
and the storerooms of modern Spanish pirates, Joshua Knelman takes
you on an epic journey to the contradictory heart of one of
humanity's most pleasurable and deadly inventions.”
—Jason Logan, multi-award-winning Creative Director and author of
Make Ink: A Forager's Guide To Natural Inkmaking
“[T]he pleasure of Knelman’s fast-paced Firebrand: A Tobacco
Lawyer’s Journey comes in a variety of ways. For starters, you know
who the bad guys are right from the get-go (the tobacco giants).
The central figure is a young Canadian lawyer who stays unnamed
from beginning to end as he goes about the bad guys’ business of
keeping the lethal but legal product ever available to the addicted
masses. His tale, as told by Knelman, has something of the style of
a John Grisham thriller.”
—Literary Review of Canada
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