In the not so distant past, posing seductively with a cigarette was de rigueur for Hollywood types. How many celebrities today dare to even hold one? No Smoking is a tribute to the 20th century, a century that created, promoted, and glorified the cigarette and then suddenly declared war on it. For decades, smoking has been associated with freedom, elegance, or insolence. Born in the late 19th century and heavily demonized in the early 21st, the cigarette coincides with a century of glamour and industry. Today, in most Western countries, smoking is considered a provocation, a shameful urge-almost uncool. No Smoking is a social retrospective on the cigarette-its momentous birth, its alluring peak, its disreputable downfall.