First published 2010
Daniel Okrent examines America's most bewildering constitutional experiment: the thirteen years when drinking alcohol became illegal. The book explores how a nation built on liquor consumption, where colonial ships carried more beer than water and whiskey cost less than tea by the 1820s, suddenly reversed course. Okrent traces the unlikely coalition that made Prohibition possible: suffragettes seeking political power, small-town Protestants fearing immigrant influence, anti-German wartime sentiment, and unexpected factors like automobiles and income taxes. He reveals how Americans responded with creative smuggling operations, secret speakeasies, and elaborate schemes to keep drinking. The narrative features characters from Susan B. Anthony to bootlegger Sam Bronfman, federal prosecutor Mabel Walker Willebrandt to Meyer Lansky, and explores Joseph P. Kennedy's misunderstood liquor business involvement. Okrent shows how this unprecedented government intrusion transformed American society permanently.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-narrative, social-commentary
Setting: America, United States
Period: 13th Amendment, Prohibition Era
480 pages · Hardcover · Scribner