The War on Alcohol
Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
11 July 2017
Territory Rights — Worldwide.
Description
A ground-breaking history of Prohibition and a new creation story for the powerful American state.
Prohibition has long been portrayed as a “noble experiment” that failed, a newsreel story of glamorous gangsters, flappers and speakeasies. Now Lisa McGirr dismantles this myth to reveal a much more significant history. Prohibition was the seedbed for a pivotal expansion of the federal government and the genesis of America’s contemporary penal state.
Reviews
"A focused and thought-provoking book." — The Economist
"McGirr’s ambitious book attempts to go beyond stereotypes of bootlegging, speakeasies and crime syndicates, and casts the 1920-1933 Prohibition era in a new light." — Tony Barber, Best Books of 2016, Financial Times