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The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
Scribner
June 2011
On Sale: May 31, 2011
480 pages
ISBN: 074327704X
EAN: 9780743277044
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of Americaβs most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the U.S. Constitution was amended to restrict one of Americaβs favorite pastimes: drinking alcoholic beverages. From its start, America has been awash in drink. The sailing vessel that brought John Winthrop to the shores of the New World in 1630 carried more beer than water. By the 1820s, liquor flowed so plentifully it was cheaper than tea. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing. Yet we did, and Last Call is Daniel Okrentβs dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever. Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the womenβs suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax. Through it all, Americans kept drinking, going to remarkably creative lengths to smuggle, sell, conceal, and convivially (and sometimes fatally) imbibe their favorite intoxicants. Last Call is peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety: Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and bootlegger Sam Bronfman, Pierre S. du Pont and H. L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and the incredibleβif long-forgottenβfederal official Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who throughout the twenties was the most powerful woman in the country. (Perhaps most surprising of all is Okrentβs account of Joseph P. Kennedyβs legendary, and long-misunderstood, role in the liquor business.) Itβs a book rich with stories from nearly all parts of the country. Okrentβs narrative runs through smoky Manhattan speakeasies, where relations between the sexes were changed forever; California vineyards busily producing βsacramentalβ wine; New England fishing communities that gave up fishing for the more lucrative rum-running business; and in Washington, the halls of Congress itself, where politicians who had voted for Prohibition drank openly and without apology. Last Call is capacious, meticulous, and thrillingly told. It stands as the most complete history of Prohibition ever written and confirms Daniel Okrentβs rank as a major American writer.
 Media BuzzCBS Sunday Morning - October 2, 2011
Fresh Air - NPR - June 10, 2011
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