Prohibition: The 13 Years That Changed America - Hardcover

Edward Samuel Behr

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563387343 ISBN 13: 9780563387343

Publisher: BBC Consumer Publishing, 1997

Synopsis

Exploring the USA's 13 years of Prohibition from political, historical and cultural perspectives, this book discusses not only gangsters, speakeasies and two-tone shoes, but also other, more unusual stereotypes. Accounts by the Chicago-based criminal-lawyer-turned-bootlegger, George Remus, and Mabel Willebrandt of the Justice Department, who was determined to break Remus's power, are a significant part of the book. The author, a veteran journalist and war correspondent, also conducted interviews with people who were an intrinsic part of the Prohibition era.

About this title

Review:

The Roaring Twenties is one of our most romanticized eras. We tend to look back on the days of Prohibition as a golden time of freewheeling gangsters and gun-wielding G-men, all of whom really knew how to live. Edward Behr's thorough and comprehensive history of that time labors under no such misconceptions. Prohibition, as Behr so expertly illustrates, was a period of rampant corruption maintained by vicious violence and widespread dishonesty. The central character in Behr's story is bootlegger George Remus, who once recounted to the Senate how he was able to sell massive amounts of whiskey as medicine after purchasing a license from United States Attorney General Harry Daugherty. No reader of Prohibition will ever look back on the 1920s with quite the same naive pleasure.

About the Author:

Edward Behr, a veteran journalist and war correspondent, was the author of several books, including The Last Emperor, Prohibition, and Hirohito: Behind the Myth. He died in 2007.

About this edition

• Publisher: BBC Consumer Publishing
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0563387343
• ISBN 13: 9780563387343
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256