Lost Empire - The Fall of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. practically built the U.S. cigarette industry. From Camel, through Winston and then Salem, its brands dominated the market and crushed competitors. But times and fortunes changed. Lost Empire - The Fall of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is the inside story of what happened to one of the world's most profitable and powerful companies. It details RJR's stunning successes and blunders, the epic battles with lawyers and regulators, and the company's desperate bid to find new smokers, which would propel Big Tobacco into the biggest legal settlement in history.

Frank V. Tursi is the environmental and special-projects reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal. He has been a reporter and editor with the newspaper since 1978. He also worked for the Miami Herald as a sports reporter and for weekly newspapers in North Carolina and Florida. He has won numerous awards for environmental coverage and was the only North Carolina journalist chosen by NASA as a semifinalist in a national competition to send a journalist into space. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Tursi is a graduate of East Carolina University. Susan E. White was a county government reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal from 1996 to 2000. She is now a reporter for The Virginian Pilot in Norfolk, Va. A native of Siler City, N.C., White graduated from Campbell University with a degree in mass communications. Steve McQuilkin covered tobacco as a business reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal. He also worked for The Tampa Tribune and is now an editor at the News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla. He is a graduate of the University of Florida.