The corporate history of RJR Nabisco is central to this book, as it ties together several parts of the narrative: the biographies of key players like F. Ross Johnson, who drove its development and transformation; the growth of the North Carolina factory town of Winston-Salem; changing societal attitudes toward smoking; and the development of the leveraged buyout (LBO) method in the context of 1980s Wall Street excess and greed.

RJR Nabisco was a conglomerate that combined three companies: Standard Brands, Nabisco, and RJ Reynolds. The first two were packaged food companies, and the latter a tobacco company. In turn, Standard Brands itself arose out of the 1929 JP Morgan-led corporate merger of several entities, including E. W. Gillett Company of Canada and Fleischmann Company. In just over a decade, Standard Brands became one of the key companies in the North American market for packaged goods. By 1955, Standard Brands began appearing on the Fortune 500 list. As the company grew, it acquired brands such as Planters. In 1981, the company merged with Nabisco and became Nabisco Brands.

Adolphus Green established the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) in 1898. In its early days, advertisements made by the well-known agency N.