Memphis, Tennessee, 1993. Attorney Michael Lewis looks into the emaciated face of his friend, a lifelong smoker dying of cancer, and resolves that something has to be done to right the wrong. Big Tobacco, which in four decades of litigation has never paid a penny, must be held accountable for the human and financial wreckage its products leave behind - especially the millions of lives snuffed out. Four years later, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore stands at his microphone in the ballroom of the ANA Hotel in Washington, D.C., and announces to the nation that Big Tobacco has just conceded the biggest legal settlement in history - $368.5 billion. And from the moment it is announced, the agreement is attacked and applauded from every side.

For the first time, the facts behind this fascinating story are woven into a single investigative narrative. Written by a reporting team positioned, from the very beginning, close to key players from all sides of the legal battleground, this compelling human spectacle takes us behind closed doors to witness greed, duplicity, sacrifice, the power of people with influence, and the ingenuity of people without power. With its tales of reversals, brilliant compromises, and cold-eyed brinkmanship, The People vs. Big Tobacco lets readers become insiders themselves in one of the most consequential social and financial dramas of our century.