Prohibition: The 13 Years That Changed America - Hardcover
On Jan. 16, 1920, at the stroke of midnight, America went dry. For the next 13 years, no U.S. citizen had the right to buy or sell alcoholic drink. However, instead of eliminating the source of the Devil s Brew , this period of supposed abstinence was to incite Americans -- even law-abiding citizens -- to bend or break the law by every possible means. Far from eliminating alcohol, the laws of Prohibition encouraged more drinking (albeit illegally) than ever before. Behr traces the rise of the Temperance movement from its colonial roots to the Jazz Age. The shocking & compelling stories found here challenge conventional perceptions of the Prohibition era & of how it shaped modern-day America.
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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.
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- PublisherBBC Books
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0756752469
- ISBN 13 9780756752460
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages256
- Rating
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