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The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
Prohibition has long been portrayed as a “noble experiment” that failed, a newsreel story of glamorous gangsters, flappers, and speakeasies. Now at last Lisa McGirr dismantles this cherished myth to reveal a much more significant history. Prohibition was the seedbed for a pivotal expansion of the federal government, the genesis of our contemporary penal state. Her deeply researched, eye-opening account uncovers patterns of enforcement still familiar today: the war on alcohol was waged disproportionately in African American, immigrant, and poor white communities. Alongside Jim Crow and other discriminatory laws, Prohibition brought coercion into everyday life and even into private homes. Its targets coalesced into an electoral base of urban, working-class voters that propelled FDR to the White House.
This outstanding history also reveals a new genome for the activist American state, one that shows the DNA of the right as well as the left. It was Herbert Hoover who built the extensive penal apparatus used by the federal government to combat the crime spawned by Prohibition. The subsequent federal wars on crime, on drugs, and on terror all display the inheritances of the war on alcohol. McGirr shows the powerful American state to be a bipartisan creation, a legacy not only of the New Deal and the Great Society but also of Prohibition and its progeny.
The War on Alcohol is history at its best—original, authoritative, and illuminating of our past and its continuing presence today.
This outstanding history also reveals a new genome for the activist American state, one that shows the DNA of the right as well as the left. It was Herbert Hoover who built the extensive penal apparatus used by the federal government to combat the crime spawned by Prohibition. The subsequent federal wars on crime, on drugs, and on terror all display the inheritances of the war on alcohol. McGirr shows the powerful American state to be a bipartisan creation, a legacy not only of the New Deal and the Great Society but also of Prohibition and its progeny.
The War on Alcohol is history at its best—original, authoritative, and illuminating of our past and its continuing presence today.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2015
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891 people want to read
About the author
Lisa McGirr
22 books9 followersLisa McGirr is professor of History at Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
June 7, 2021
This is a well researched book with a very interesting thesis, that prohibition paved the way for an expanded US federal government. It gives a concise history of prohibition, focused on the political and social battles and changes.
Prohibition, in her telling, not only led to the rejection of the constrained social mores that created the dry sentiment (thereby paving the way for the roaring 20s and a flowering of things like jazz), but it also led to the increased political consciousness of urban immigrants and then to the rise of FDR and the middle 20th century democratic party. Immigrants, who were more likely to be drinkers, felt targeted not only by the 18th amendment and the resulting enforcement laws, but also felt resentment from unequal enforcement. The rich, white protestants (portrayed in The Great Gatsby and elsewhere) feared little from the enforcement and judiciary, but the poor, immigrant (Italians, Poles, and Eastern Europeans are discussed in detail), and/or non-White were disproportionately targeted. Unsurprising but infuriating nonetheless. And in the face of the resentment towards prohibition, urban immigrants organized and began asserting their political power more consistently.
There are innumerable parallels with the drug war, and McGirr actually makes that comparison and shows how many of those involved in the political and bureaucratic machinery of prohibition also were involved in the subsequent development of US and international narcotics enforcement (including, due to Western panic around Latino and Mexican immigration, adding marijuana as a schedule A drug equal to heroin). The rhetoric around the 1930s-1940s narcotics campaign mirrored not only that from prohibition but also that from the Nixon/Regan drug war revival in the 1970s and 1980s.
Enforcement of prohibition took lots of money, men, and laws, laws which were centralized in the federal government. This structure, McGirr says, made US Citizens more comfortable with a larger, more active, more punitive, and more intrusive federal government. This set the stage not only for acceptance of FDRs new deal, but also to the exponential expansion of federal scope and power in the 20th century.
I love books that make connections and show (unintended) consequences and impacts. Prohibition is often treated as a silly blip of a mistake in legislating morality, so it was really interesting to learn about the impacts the Prohibition actually had.
Prohibition, in her telling, not only led to the rejection of the constrained social mores that created the dry sentiment (thereby paving the way for the roaring 20s and a flowering of things like jazz), but it also led to the increased political consciousness of urban immigrants and then to the rise of FDR and the middle 20th century democratic party. Immigrants, who were more likely to be drinkers, felt targeted not only by the 18th amendment and the resulting enforcement laws, but also felt resentment from unequal enforcement. The rich, white protestants (portrayed in The Great Gatsby and elsewhere) feared little from the enforcement and judiciary, but the poor, immigrant (Italians, Poles, and Eastern Europeans are discussed in detail), and/or non-White were disproportionately targeted. Unsurprising but infuriating nonetheless. And in the face of the resentment towards prohibition, urban immigrants organized and began asserting their political power more consistently.
There are innumerable parallels with the drug war, and McGirr actually makes that comparison and shows how many of those involved in the political and bureaucratic machinery of prohibition also were involved in the subsequent development of US and international narcotics enforcement (including, due to Western panic around Latino and Mexican immigration, adding marijuana as a schedule A drug equal to heroin). The rhetoric around the 1930s-1940s narcotics campaign mirrored not only that from prohibition but also that from the Nixon/Regan drug war revival in the 1970s and 1980s.
Enforcement of prohibition took lots of money, men, and laws, laws which were centralized in the federal government. This structure, McGirr says, made US Citizens more comfortable with a larger, more active, more punitive, and more intrusive federal government. This set the stage not only for acceptance of FDRs new deal, but also to the exponential expansion of federal scope and power in the 20th century.
I love books that make connections and show (unintended) consequences and impacts. Prohibition is often treated as a silly blip of a mistake in legislating morality, so it was really interesting to learn about the impacts the Prohibition actually had.
November 15, 2021
Another book I read for school but this could definitely be read by anyone interested in this subject. It's well-researched and well-written. It's probably not the most entertaining read; it's very information-heavy and repetitive at times. However, if you're interested in prohibition, this is a good book to learn more about the socio-history in that time period.
March 22, 2016
Lisa McGirr's socio-political take on Prohibition and its aftermath is an informative, if a bit academic, take on an American movement that was hugely popular until the reality set in. No one really expected the Volstead Act to be responsible for a federal income tax, the rise of the KKK, the mass incarceration of non-violent offenders or a shake-up of our entire criminal justice system but that is exactly what happened.
While the popular view of Prohibition seems to concentrate on speak-easy glitz, bootlegging gangsters and hillbilly stills the reality was much less glamorous. Typically, the poor and immigrant communities bore the brunt of unconstitutional search and seizures, draconian sentencing and racial profiling while the white middle and upper classes pretty much drank with impunity. State law enforcement was underfunded, leading to citizen brigades of shock troops (i.e. the KKK) who zealously, and selectively, fought the war on alcohol. Although public outrage eventually led to the repeal of the 18th Amendment, the groundwork was laid for the future wars on drugs and terror.
The tone of the book is a bit "dry" (sorry) but it will be enlightening for anyone, like me, who mainly knows about Prohibition from movies and TV. Even the Ken Burns documentary did not cover the topic with this kind of insight.
While the popular view of Prohibition seems to concentrate on speak-easy glitz, bootlegging gangsters and hillbilly stills the reality was much less glamorous. Typically, the poor and immigrant communities bore the brunt of unconstitutional search and seizures, draconian sentencing and racial profiling while the white middle and upper classes pretty much drank with impunity. State law enforcement was underfunded, leading to citizen brigades of shock troops (i.e. the KKK) who zealously, and selectively, fought the war on alcohol. Although public outrage eventually led to the repeal of the 18th Amendment, the groundwork was laid for the future wars on drugs and terror.
The tone of the book is a bit "dry" (sorry) but it will be enlightening for anyone, like me, who mainly knows about Prohibition from movies and TV. Even the Ken Burns documentary did not cover the topic with this kind of insight.
August 21, 2018
How did a country built on the proposition that all men are endowed with the unalienable right to liberty, end up with a constitutional amendment banning the drink?
Several causes jump off the pages of Lisa McGirr's The War on Alcohol. She takes the reader through the intersection of political coalitions, lobbying and good timing which lucked the prohibitionists into the eighteenth amendment.
We learn that like many other successful political lobbying campaigns, it was driven by a coalition of disparate forces. Moral crusaders in the Anti-Saloon League and the Womens Christian Temperance Union, had been lingering on the public scene for some 50 years. Alongside the evangelicals, the women's rights movements and the factory owners found common cause, for it was the working class woman who bore the brunt of the effects of drunk men each evening, who had just been relieved of the family's grocery money at the saloon. Factory men were often absent or hungover after the weekend, affecting productivity and output.
As well as assembling the coalitions, there were external forces which spurned the movement's success. For instance, much of the federal government's income had previously been raised through an excise on alcohol sales. The sixteenth amendment was passed in 1913, which permitted the federal government to levy income tax and gave the federal government the opening needed to introduce prohibition without drying up its coffers. The US entry into WW1 in 1917 gave further credence to the manufacturers' arguments about the drink affecting productivity.
Reading McGirr's earlier chapters, I am reminded how much of politics is driven not only by hard political campaigning, but opportunism. The original advocates for prohibition, driven by a moral push, had been organised amongst themselves for some 50 years before they found political success. They were devoted, targeted and well organised. But it took a world war, a women's rights movement and another constitutional amendment to coalesce before they achieved their victory.
What was prohibition like?
McGirr paints the many facets of American life during prohibition.
Most notable were the ghastly effects prohibition had on poor, ethnic and African-American communities. The communities were overrun by organised crime syndicates, with individuals directly subject to violence and intimidation and slow economies grinding under the weight of corruption. Those who did partake in a social drink or seek to brew a few drops on the side to supplement a meager income, would often find themselves sentenced to many years in prison with their families left destitute. Even those who complied with the law were subject to unconstitutional, tyrannic federal enforcement - home raids, seizures and unwarranted arrests - mirroring much of the racial bias in law enforcement in the century since. Ironically, any convictions for bootlegging in these poorer communities had little effect on overall supply, as organised crime syndidcates which controlled the vast majority of the volume production were able to wriggle out of the net through with well placed bribes.
On the flip side, much of the wealthy and middle class were immune to the effects the policy had on the poor. The law helped bring sweeping and permanent changes to the nightlife scene in major cities, most notably in New York. Speakeasies sprung up throughout the country. Women began to attend speakeasies which, because of the necessity for discretion, were free of much of the debauchery and risk previously associated with drinking in saloons. Jazz, dancing and drinking between men and women emerged in a new, socially progressive atmosphere.
The long term consequences
McGirr highlights a number of changes to the American political and cultural landscape which were driven by prohibition, many of which shaped the country for the next century. She explores the rise of the federal criminal and surveillance state necessary to enforce such widespread violations, and the progressive social movements which emerged in the speakeasy shadows.
Additionally, and of particular interest to me, was the historic shift in the Democratic party's voter base at the end of prohibition. Since the civil war some 70 years earlier, the Democrats had had an association with white supremacy and the South. They had spent the majority of the previous 50 years in relative political wilderness at the federal level.
In 1928, the Democratic Presidential candidate Al Smith, ran on an anti-prohibition platform. Although he lost an overwhelming defeat to Herbert Hoover (attributable to Hoover's capture of previously solid Democratic areas in the South), Smith captured much of the urban communities in the big cities including a strong Italian majority in New York, Poles and Germans in Pittsburgh and African-Americans in Chicago. By 1932, with the great depression in full swing, those changes which Smith had planted the seeds, sprung into full bloom. Franklin D Roosevelt was elected in 1932, crystalising the shift in the voter base of Democrats from the south to the progressive urban and minority communities. McGirr quotes some African-American leaders saying at the time that the debt they owed to the "party of Lincoln" had now been paid. The Republicans would thereafter not regain the Presidency for another twenty years until Eisenhower was elected in 1952. The Democrats held onto the working class urban voter from 1932 until, perhaps, 2016.
What can we learn from prohibition
I read history so that I can better understand the world I live in today. In every chapter of McGirr's book, policy lessons and parallels to today's political landscape jump off the page. The most notable nod, obvious in the title, are the parallels with today's war on drugs: the convenient coalitions of the moralists and corporations; the endeavour to control human vice through the criminal justice system; turning a blind eye to the real social, cultural and economic sources of despair; a proxy war on race and class.
In the last chapter of McGirr's account she delves deeper into these parallels. She also identifies some interesting distinctions which indicate that the war on drugs might be a thornier policy problem to unwind than the war on alcohol, despite prohibition being embedded into a constitutional amendment. McGirr notes that drug use is not as widespread as alcohol use, in particular amongst rich white communities, making it more difficult to form anti-drug war coalitions. She also notes that big-pharma is heavily self-interested in restricting narcotic supplies and that that financial interest may make reform more difficult.
My only critique of McGirr is that these parallels could have been fleshed out further. The eight or so pages devoted to comparative analysis with the war on drugs was engaging, but seemed insufficient given the rich trove of historical parallels that seemed obvious earlier in the text. However, McGirr's text is a historical narrative and never purported to be an analysis of the modern policy landscape. Perhaps, if she's reading this, she might consider her next work be a comparison of prohibition to the modern war on drugs. Call it a sequel to this otherwise engrossing exploration of a remarkable period in America's history.
Several causes jump off the pages of Lisa McGirr's The War on Alcohol. She takes the reader through the intersection of political coalitions, lobbying and good timing which lucked the prohibitionists into the eighteenth amendment.
We learn that like many other successful political lobbying campaigns, it was driven by a coalition of disparate forces. Moral crusaders in the Anti-Saloon League and the Womens Christian Temperance Union, had been lingering on the public scene for some 50 years. Alongside the evangelicals, the women's rights movements and the factory owners found common cause, for it was the working class woman who bore the brunt of the effects of drunk men each evening, who had just been relieved of the family's grocery money at the saloon. Factory men were often absent or hungover after the weekend, affecting productivity and output.
As well as assembling the coalitions, there were external forces which spurned the movement's success. For instance, much of the federal government's income had previously been raised through an excise on alcohol sales. The sixteenth amendment was passed in 1913, which permitted the federal government to levy income tax and gave the federal government the opening needed to introduce prohibition without drying up its coffers. The US entry into WW1 in 1917 gave further credence to the manufacturers' arguments about the drink affecting productivity.
Reading McGirr's earlier chapters, I am reminded how much of politics is driven not only by hard political campaigning, but opportunism. The original advocates for prohibition, driven by a moral push, had been organised amongst themselves for some 50 years before they found political success. They were devoted, targeted and well organised. But it took a world war, a women's rights movement and another constitutional amendment to coalesce before they achieved their victory.
What was prohibition like?
McGirr paints the many facets of American life during prohibition.
Most notable were the ghastly effects prohibition had on poor, ethnic and African-American communities. The communities were overrun by organised crime syndicates, with individuals directly subject to violence and intimidation and slow economies grinding under the weight of corruption. Those who did partake in a social drink or seek to brew a few drops on the side to supplement a meager income, would often find themselves sentenced to many years in prison with their families left destitute. Even those who complied with the law were subject to unconstitutional, tyrannic federal enforcement - home raids, seizures and unwarranted arrests - mirroring much of the racial bias in law enforcement in the century since. Ironically, any convictions for bootlegging in these poorer communities had little effect on overall supply, as organised crime syndidcates which controlled the vast majority of the volume production were able to wriggle out of the net through with well placed bribes.
On the flip side, much of the wealthy and middle class were immune to the effects the policy had on the poor. The law helped bring sweeping and permanent changes to the nightlife scene in major cities, most notably in New York. Speakeasies sprung up throughout the country. Women began to attend speakeasies which, because of the necessity for discretion, were free of much of the debauchery and risk previously associated with drinking in saloons. Jazz, dancing and drinking between men and women emerged in a new, socially progressive atmosphere.
The long term consequences
McGirr highlights a number of changes to the American political and cultural landscape which were driven by prohibition, many of which shaped the country for the next century. She explores the rise of the federal criminal and surveillance state necessary to enforce such widespread violations, and the progressive social movements which emerged in the speakeasy shadows.
Additionally, and of particular interest to me, was the historic shift in the Democratic party's voter base at the end of prohibition. Since the civil war some 70 years earlier, the Democrats had had an association with white supremacy and the South. They had spent the majority of the previous 50 years in relative political wilderness at the federal level.
In 1928, the Democratic Presidential candidate Al Smith, ran on an anti-prohibition platform. Although he lost an overwhelming defeat to Herbert Hoover (attributable to Hoover's capture of previously solid Democratic areas in the South), Smith captured much of the urban communities in the big cities including a strong Italian majority in New York, Poles and Germans in Pittsburgh and African-Americans in Chicago. By 1932, with the great depression in full swing, those changes which Smith had planted the seeds, sprung into full bloom. Franklin D Roosevelt was elected in 1932, crystalising the shift in the voter base of Democrats from the south to the progressive urban and minority communities. McGirr quotes some African-American leaders saying at the time that the debt they owed to the "party of Lincoln" had now been paid. The Republicans would thereafter not regain the Presidency for another twenty years until Eisenhower was elected in 1952. The Democrats held onto the working class urban voter from 1932 until, perhaps, 2016.
What can we learn from prohibition
I read history so that I can better understand the world I live in today. In every chapter of McGirr's book, policy lessons and parallels to today's political landscape jump off the page. The most notable nod, obvious in the title, are the parallels with today's war on drugs: the convenient coalitions of the moralists and corporations; the endeavour to control human vice through the criminal justice system; turning a blind eye to the real social, cultural and economic sources of despair; a proxy war on race and class.
In the last chapter of McGirr's account she delves deeper into these parallels. She also identifies some interesting distinctions which indicate that the war on drugs might be a thornier policy problem to unwind than the war on alcohol, despite prohibition being embedded into a constitutional amendment. McGirr notes that drug use is not as widespread as alcohol use, in particular amongst rich white communities, making it more difficult to form anti-drug war coalitions. She also notes that big-pharma is heavily self-interested in restricting narcotic supplies and that that financial interest may make reform more difficult.
My only critique of McGirr is that these parallels could have been fleshed out further. The eight or so pages devoted to comparative analysis with the war on drugs was engaging, but seemed insufficient given the rich trove of historical parallels that seemed obvious earlier in the text. However, McGirr's text is a historical narrative and never purported to be an analysis of the modern policy landscape. Perhaps, if she's reading this, she might consider her next work be a comparison of prohibition to the modern war on drugs. Call it a sequel to this otherwise engrossing exploration of a remarkable period in America's history.
December 7, 2024
Wonderfully thorough. Especially appreciated the extra time taken to explain the connections to our current “war on drugs” culturally and legally. “Despite a wide consensus that Prohibition of the liquor traffic was a fundamentally flawed crusade with devastating consequences, its spiritual and policy twin—the war on drugs—has gone largely unchallenged.” Was an amazing quote and summarization. Great consideration taken to discuss race and economic factors. Wishing for more of a look at women, rather than the traditional one dimensional look of upper class white women and the temperance movement. Also wish there had been space for analysis of the legacy of trauma from those incarcerated or harmed by alcohol prohibition, into current generations. Overall a great read and very educational.
March 17, 2025
perhaps a 4.5,,,
March 12, 2024
Fine! Not my favorite… a little unbalanced with not much on the progression of the movement over its first decades, and then a very strong attempt to justify the subtitle, maybe overreaching at times. Readable, though!
April 6, 2018
Well researched and meaty with information, this is an important book. It traces the origins and arc of our failed social experiment with Prohibition. And beyond the solid history lesson, it unveils the enduring parallel history of "the war on drugs" that has its roots in the same misguided and discriminatory effort at behavioral control. A war marred by ethnic bias, selective enforcement, mass incarceration, and a tragic neglect of the underlying economic causes of drug dependency. Little appreciated now, the expansive scaffolding for our present-day police/penal state, far from "small government", was erected largely by conservative Republican forces during Prohibition under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations (later expanded under FDR). And the thinly-veiled anti-immigrant, anti-poor, anti-black sentiments that heavily influenced enforcement efforts during Prohibition (with the concomitant rise in the KKK) have clear parallels with the reactionary "law and order" campaigns that led to the election of both Nixon and Trump. Similarly, Ronald Reagan's ill-fated "Just Say No" declaration against drugs was just a continuation of Herbert Hoover's rhetoric against alcohol fifty years earlier (Hoover essentially ignored the findings and recommendations of his own Wickersham Commission). And now we have private for-profit prisons to add to the centennial malady. Have we not learned anything??
I agree with some of the criticism on GR about the overall quality of the writing. It's spotty, often repetitive (not always a bad thing to reinforce major points), and sometimes downright confounding. But that's a small price to pay for a history lesson this rich and still relevant.
I agree with some of the criticism on GR about the overall quality of the writing. It's spotty, often repetitive (not always a bad thing to reinforce major points), and sometimes downright confounding. But that's a small price to pay for a history lesson this rich and still relevant.
October 25, 2023
Prohibition was the pinnacle of the Progressive movement’s insistence on imposing a moral ethic on the American people and using federal and state governments to enforce its reforms. A tyrannical majority pushed through the passage and ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919 and the Volstead Act a year later. Prohibition unleashed a torrent of organized crime and an unprecedented backlash that resulted in its repeal in 1932. In the process, anti-liquor forces suffered the unintended consequences of solidifying federal power and regulatory reach that has continued to expand, unabated to the present.
McGirr’s book is well-written and interesting, however, many of her arguments are poorly supported or contradicted by other elements of her narrative. She used standard critical theory tropes of racial, gender, and class gaslighting to present anecdotal evidence and interpretations of the (little) empirical data in the book.
McGirr’s book is well-written and interesting, however, many of her arguments are poorly supported or contradicted by other elements of her narrative. She used standard critical theory tropes of racial, gender, and class gaslighting to present anecdotal evidence and interpretations of the (little) empirical data in the book.
December 25, 2015
This is a fresh and original book that has something new to say about the so-called “noble experiment” and can even tie it to recent times. McGarr, a professor of history at Harvard whose previous book was “Suburban Warrior” (a look at the post-Goldwater conservative movement) look at the 1920s prohibition effort and notes two key ways that it changed the nation – then and ever since. First, (as the book’s title notes), it helped lead to an increased federal policing presence. Second, it helped mobilized urban ethnics on behalf of the Democratic Party, something that hadn’t always been the case.
Prohibition, she argues, combined 19th century morality with 20th century state building. At the time, immigration was up and ethnics often met in working class saloons, which were central to political mobilization for urban machines. Half the country was already under some form of dry laws, but the move was made to nationalize it. WWI was a key moment. We need to be more prepared (re: sober), have more food, and it fueled anti-immigrant sentiment.
There were working class protests against prohibition. The AFL opposed it. Liquor was central to immigrant culture for many groups. This united ethnics and labor. Public drunkenness was down, but people tried to get around Volstead. As prohibition went on, instead of getting used to it, hostility to prohibition increased. The immigrant vote increased in the 1920s.
There was more police surveillance and concurrent policing power in individual states. But enforcement was selective, hitting the poor, ethnics, and blacks. There was more enforcement, and prisons were overwhelmed. Deadly force wasn’t uncommon by the police. Virginia police paid agents a commission for successful raids. Private homes were at risk under prohibition. Blacks turned against prohibition. It was also used to criminalize Latin Americans in the southwest.
McGarr argued that this was a fight between the values of proprietary capitalism (from the 19th century) versus consumer capitalism (of the 20th century). The latter ethos wasn’t dry. For them, there was more speakeasys. There was a less strict race line, which helped set the stage for the Harlem Renaissance. Also, the drug trade went up in this environment. New styles of dress and social norms accompanied the era. It was a concern over personal liberties – one that was more widespread that concerns over the WWI Sedition Act or the Red Scare after the war.
Williamson County, Illinois had some of the worst of the violence. There were citizen warriors acting as vigilanties under the rally cry of law and order. The WCTU and ASL picked up on this. This was caused by a lack of federal agents. The KKK also called for militant action to preserve militant temperance. There was a conspiratorial worldview where people blamed blacks and Jews and Catholics for the problems. The dry movement was huge for the KKK.
By 1928, the GOP was clearly pro-dry, as he prohibition issue was becoming more partisan. Prohibition was breaking down old party loyalties. By 1928, urban workers went strongly Democratic. Previously, the Democrats were seen as the more rural party, and the more white supremacy party. Al Smith and Anton Cermak were a new breed for the party. When Al Smith won the nomination as an avowed wet, Democrats for Hoover clubs sprung up. But the party was also more tolerant and urban. Smith got killed in 1928, but won a lot in his loss. He won the future of the party and the prohibition issue.
Hoover sought to build a more effective penal system. He was the first president ever to make crime a key part of his inaugural address. Crime needed a federal solution. Organized crime was up. Hoover created a systemized federal response. Prison overcrowded resulted, to which Hoover created the Federal Bureau of Prisons. From 1920-30, prison population tripled. Court reforms were needed and there were more plea bargains. While William Howard Taft hadn’t been a wet before, once it became law of the land, he focused on the rule of law and tried to enforce it. This was one place he had no trouble allowing for a more active federal government. McGarr calls it judicial neoconservatism. With J. Edgar Hoover, you had the founding of a more professional and bureaucratic federal law enforcement. Also, a war on narcotics was part of it. There was more policing, surveillance, and punishment.
Elite opinion still supported the law for the most part. But there was a backlash from all the crime and vigilante supporters and the Democartic party becoming more openly wet. Al Smith’s campaign sparked the repeal movement in earnest. The Great Depression put that much more pressure on the government; we need to focus on other things. Some wet GOP’rs by 1932, including John D. Rockefeller, who’d helped finance the ASL. FDR became ensured the presidential nomination when he went wet. Drinking would be different, though. It would be more at home instead of in public. Beer had mostly been sold by the barrel or keg until now. There was a legacy: narcotics. The drug war began in the 1970s, and was similar in its selective enforcement. There was less viligantism, but that’s because the police work had been already expanded.
Prohibition, she argues, combined 19th century morality with 20th century state building. At the time, immigration was up and ethnics often met in working class saloons, which were central to political mobilization for urban machines. Half the country was already under some form of dry laws, but the move was made to nationalize it. WWI was a key moment. We need to be more prepared (re: sober), have more food, and it fueled anti-immigrant sentiment.
There were working class protests against prohibition. The AFL opposed it. Liquor was central to immigrant culture for many groups. This united ethnics and labor. Public drunkenness was down, but people tried to get around Volstead. As prohibition went on, instead of getting used to it, hostility to prohibition increased. The immigrant vote increased in the 1920s.
There was more police surveillance and concurrent policing power in individual states. But enforcement was selective, hitting the poor, ethnics, and blacks. There was more enforcement, and prisons were overwhelmed. Deadly force wasn’t uncommon by the police. Virginia police paid agents a commission for successful raids. Private homes were at risk under prohibition. Blacks turned against prohibition. It was also used to criminalize Latin Americans in the southwest.
McGarr argued that this was a fight between the values of proprietary capitalism (from the 19th century) versus consumer capitalism (of the 20th century). The latter ethos wasn’t dry. For them, there was more speakeasys. There was a less strict race line, which helped set the stage for the Harlem Renaissance. Also, the drug trade went up in this environment. New styles of dress and social norms accompanied the era. It was a concern over personal liberties – one that was more widespread that concerns over the WWI Sedition Act or the Red Scare after the war.
Williamson County, Illinois had some of the worst of the violence. There were citizen warriors acting as vigilanties under the rally cry of law and order. The WCTU and ASL picked up on this. This was caused by a lack of federal agents. The KKK also called for militant action to preserve militant temperance. There was a conspiratorial worldview where people blamed blacks and Jews and Catholics for the problems. The dry movement was huge for the KKK.
By 1928, the GOP was clearly pro-dry, as he prohibition issue was becoming more partisan. Prohibition was breaking down old party loyalties. By 1928, urban workers went strongly Democratic. Previously, the Democrats were seen as the more rural party, and the more white supremacy party. Al Smith and Anton Cermak were a new breed for the party. When Al Smith won the nomination as an avowed wet, Democrats for Hoover clubs sprung up. But the party was also more tolerant and urban. Smith got killed in 1928, but won a lot in his loss. He won the future of the party and the prohibition issue.
Hoover sought to build a more effective penal system. He was the first president ever to make crime a key part of his inaugural address. Crime needed a federal solution. Organized crime was up. Hoover created a systemized federal response. Prison overcrowded resulted, to which Hoover created the Federal Bureau of Prisons. From 1920-30, prison population tripled. Court reforms were needed and there were more plea bargains. While William Howard Taft hadn’t been a wet before, once it became law of the land, he focused on the rule of law and tried to enforce it. This was one place he had no trouble allowing for a more active federal government. McGarr calls it judicial neoconservatism. With J. Edgar Hoover, you had the founding of a more professional and bureaucratic federal law enforcement. Also, a war on narcotics was part of it. There was more policing, surveillance, and punishment.
Elite opinion still supported the law for the most part. But there was a backlash from all the crime and vigilante supporters and the Democartic party becoming more openly wet. Al Smith’s campaign sparked the repeal movement in earnest. The Great Depression put that much more pressure on the government; we need to focus on other things. Some wet GOP’rs by 1932, including John D. Rockefeller, who’d helped finance the ASL. FDR became ensured the presidential nomination when he went wet. Drinking would be different, though. It would be more at home instead of in public. Beer had mostly been sold by the barrel or keg until now. There was a legacy: narcotics. The drug war began in the 1970s, and was similar in its selective enforcement. There was less viligantism, but that’s because the police work had been already expanded.
October 30, 2023
For class.
August 30, 2025
Lowkey did not feel bad for that bartender who mistook a cop for the fiddler down the street and gave him liquor, like that's a rookie mistake
May 1, 2017
It's a human tendency, maybe particularly pronounced in America. to look for simple solutions to complex problems. Such was the case with the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1920 and in effect until 1933, which outlawed the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States.
Its intentions were good, to eliminate a powerful drug which caused a lot of domestic violence, and to curb the rise of the saloon culture which too often separated men from their families. But it had unintended consequences which in the end were worse than the ills they were supposed to cure, and after 13 years, the country repealed prohibition and the 18th Amendment as a failed experiment.
Nearly a hundred years after Prohibition, we tend to forget many of the details of the time, and McGirr is very good at pointing them out. She's also thorough, if sometimes a little dry and academic, at showing some of those unintended consequences.
Prohibition has to be seen as growing out of World War I - the federal government successfully mobilized war resources on a scale never seen before, and this contributed to a belief that the federal government could handle problems that were beyond the resources of individual states. McGirr also makes the point that the Prohibition amendment and the federal income tax, first enacted in l913 "shared the same political DNA." That's to say that Prohibition proponents argued that heavy federal dependency on alcohol tax revenue would be made up for by growing income tax revenue.
As for unintended consequences, the most obvious one was the rise of organized crime gangs which moved in to provide a black market in alcohol, particularly in urban areas such as Chicago where Al Capone and his gangs made millions in illegal alcohol sales and provided the money needed to buy off police and government prosecutors, much as Mexican cartels are doing a century later with narcotic drugs.
Enforcement came down hardest, not on these organized and sophisticated gangs, but on small time liquor makers, mom and pop moonshiners, and on individuals who bought and consumed alcohol. A lot of this group was made up of immigrants from Europe, especially Germans who liked their beer, as well as other minorities such as Mexicans in the west and Blacks in the south. The federal government was hard pressed to provide enough agents to enforce the anti-drinking laws, and that led to cases where citizens, often KKK members, were "deputized" and acted as enforcers of the law. The result was either innocent people being victimized or violent backlashes against these "legal" vigilante groups
Another areas where the government was unprepared was a shortage of prisons where lawbreakers could be incarcerated. The rapid rise of the federal prison system began during this period (for example, the first federal women's' prison was built in 1927), and soon filled up, half of the inmates being alcohol law offenders.
The legacy of these years is still with us. Prohibition, even though it was finally repealed, brought an upsurge in federal and state coercive powers, and the acceptance of those powers led to the New Deal government powers of Roosevelt. McGirr writes, "The radical federal endeavor to abolish the liquor traffic is the missing link between Progressive and WW I state building and the New Deal.
Finally, McGirr emphasizes that our current "war on drugs" is the spiritual and policy twin of Prohibition's war on alcohol. She thinks it's a flawed crusade based on the supposed dangers of narcotic drugs, the only solution being their eradication by heavy penalizing of drug users.
In l971 Richard Nixon shrilly warned that drug abuse was a "national emergency" and "public enemy number one." Nearly 50 years later the "war" has failed to bring to put an end to the drug culture, just as Prohibition failed to put an end to the alcohol culture.
Its intentions were good, to eliminate a powerful drug which caused a lot of domestic violence, and to curb the rise of the saloon culture which too often separated men from their families. But it had unintended consequences which in the end were worse than the ills they were supposed to cure, and after 13 years, the country repealed prohibition and the 18th Amendment as a failed experiment.
Nearly a hundred years after Prohibition, we tend to forget many of the details of the time, and McGirr is very good at pointing them out. She's also thorough, if sometimes a little dry and academic, at showing some of those unintended consequences.
Prohibition has to be seen as growing out of World War I - the federal government successfully mobilized war resources on a scale never seen before, and this contributed to a belief that the federal government could handle problems that were beyond the resources of individual states. McGirr also makes the point that the Prohibition amendment and the federal income tax, first enacted in l913 "shared the same political DNA." That's to say that Prohibition proponents argued that heavy federal dependency on alcohol tax revenue would be made up for by growing income tax revenue.
As for unintended consequences, the most obvious one was the rise of organized crime gangs which moved in to provide a black market in alcohol, particularly in urban areas such as Chicago where Al Capone and his gangs made millions in illegal alcohol sales and provided the money needed to buy off police and government prosecutors, much as Mexican cartels are doing a century later with narcotic drugs.
Enforcement came down hardest, not on these organized and sophisticated gangs, but on small time liquor makers, mom and pop moonshiners, and on individuals who bought and consumed alcohol. A lot of this group was made up of immigrants from Europe, especially Germans who liked their beer, as well as other minorities such as Mexicans in the west and Blacks in the south. The federal government was hard pressed to provide enough agents to enforce the anti-drinking laws, and that led to cases where citizens, often KKK members, were "deputized" and acted as enforcers of the law. The result was either innocent people being victimized or violent backlashes against these "legal" vigilante groups
Another areas where the government was unprepared was a shortage of prisons where lawbreakers could be incarcerated. The rapid rise of the federal prison system began during this period (for example, the first federal women's' prison was built in 1927), and soon filled up, half of the inmates being alcohol law offenders.
The legacy of these years is still with us. Prohibition, even though it was finally repealed, brought an upsurge in federal and state coercive powers, and the acceptance of those powers led to the New Deal government powers of Roosevelt. McGirr writes, "The radical federal endeavor to abolish the liquor traffic is the missing link between Progressive and WW I state building and the New Deal.
Finally, McGirr emphasizes that our current "war on drugs" is the spiritual and policy twin of Prohibition's war on alcohol. She thinks it's a flawed crusade based on the supposed dangers of narcotic drugs, the only solution being their eradication by heavy penalizing of drug users.
In l971 Richard Nixon shrilly warned that drug abuse was a "national emergency" and "public enemy number one." Nearly 50 years later the "war" has failed to bring to put an end to the drug culture, just as Prohibition failed to put an end to the alcohol culture.
October 16, 2017
The theme of the War on Alcohol, aka Prohibition, is that it was an era which set the tone for much of what we would see in America in coming decades. It established political alignments that exist to this day, expanded federal authority and even changed nightlife forever as the male bastion saloon was wiped out and replaced by the speakeasy, a nighttime gathering place for women as well as men.
Above all else Prohibition was class warfare. It was the beginning of the incarceration state, creating new categories of crime and then filling the jails with users and small producers of alcohol. Not so different from the modern day jails packed with non-violent recreational drug users. It was also the way in which officialdom expressed its racism and xenophobia. Sound familiar?
McGirr presents Prohibition as a sort of under appreciated historical era, occurring as it did between two world wars and a depression. She makes a compelling case for the historical significance of Prohibition in terms of how it influenced the future of America.
My only issue with this book is that the author sometimes uses language only another academic could love. For example: “Prohibition sharpened the rift between a set of strict bourgeois norms…associated with proprietary capitalism and the new more permissive norms coincident with the rise of consumer capitalism.” There are just oh so many more succinct and straightforward ways to say that.
Above all else Prohibition was class warfare. It was the beginning of the incarceration state, creating new categories of crime and then filling the jails with users and small producers of alcohol. Not so different from the modern day jails packed with non-violent recreational drug users. It was also the way in which officialdom expressed its racism and xenophobia. Sound familiar?
McGirr presents Prohibition as a sort of under appreciated historical era, occurring as it did between two world wars and a depression. She makes a compelling case for the historical significance of Prohibition in terms of how it influenced the future of America.
My only issue with this book is that the author sometimes uses language only another academic could love. For example: “Prohibition sharpened the rift between a set of strict bourgeois norms…associated with proprietary capitalism and the new more permissive norms coincident with the rise of consumer capitalism.” There are just oh so many more succinct and straightforward ways to say that.
January 14, 2018
She definitely points out some sides of prohibition that I had never considered before. Worth a read, esp if you’re interested in some of the (super) early origins of the war on drugs and the reach of the federal gov.
November 5, 2020
Lisa McGirr’s War on Alcohol provides an alternative view of prohibition, unlike the books and movies that celebrate speakeasies, clubs, flappers, elaborate private parties, and other aspects of the roaring twenties. McGirr focuses on the political and social history of prohibition and the 18th Amendment’s effects on poor communities and working class immigrants. She talks about the agenda of white Protestant politicians and social activist groups like the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement. She explains how these groups mobilized and lobbied to get the 18th Amendment ratified. These groups produced violent white supremacist vigilantes who helped law enforcement raid homes and intrude on citizens’ private lives. She talks about how political party ideology shifts as opposition towards the 18th Amendment grows among immigrants. She concludes by setting up the 1933 election of FDR and how the 18th Amendment is repealed. Ultimately she argues that prohibition remade party politics and pushed the American state into “distinctive and permanent molds” (McGirr xviii). Her book is organized chronologically, beginning with the ratification of the 18th amendment and ending with its repeal in 1933. Chapters three and seven were most compelling, as well as her conclusion, comparing the war on alcohol to the war on drugs and how that contributes to her argument about how prohibition created “permanent molds” for the 20th and 21st century.
One of McGirr’s strengths is focusing on smaller towns and communities. While other historians tend to focus on big cities like Chicago or New York, she dedicates part of her search to working class communities. Many of these small communities relied on alcohol to support their economy. When alcohol became illegal, it provided additional challenges. She finds that working-class immigrants and African Americans were disproportionately arrested for Volstead violations and, at times, faced deadly consequences for bootlegging, even for producing small amounts of alcohol (71). She provides several examples of this in chapter three. She writes that African Americans that worked for white bootleggers, if caught, were given higher fines and harsher punishments than whites (81-82). Often they could not afford the fines and were forced into public works projects like building roads (84). McGirr also writes about people who produced small amounts of alcohol to make extra money to support their families. Even for small amounts of alcohol, they were given harsh punishments, high fees, and long sentences. She writes that the poor were given these harsher punishments and that the rich were rarely convicted for Volstead violations (89). Other minority groups, such as Mexicans in Los Angeles, faced deportation and police abuse for violating the 18th Amendment (93). In this chapter, McGirr concludes that selective enforcement of marginalized groups and small mom and pop operations had little impact on the supply and demand of alcohol as big operations of wealthier residents went unscathed (99).
That being said, this book is definitely a popular press book and she makes a lot of sweeping generalizations. I don't think its fair for her to say that Prohibition is the main and only reason for this shift in political parties. I also don't think Prohibition is the sole reason for the war on drugs. She notes in her conclusion that a second war on drugs occurs in 1970. She jumps a couple decades and doesn't expand on that any further.
One of McGirr’s strengths is focusing on smaller towns and communities. While other historians tend to focus on big cities like Chicago or New York, she dedicates part of her search to working class communities. Many of these small communities relied on alcohol to support their economy. When alcohol became illegal, it provided additional challenges. She finds that working-class immigrants and African Americans were disproportionately arrested for Volstead violations and, at times, faced deadly consequences for bootlegging, even for producing small amounts of alcohol (71). She provides several examples of this in chapter three. She writes that African Americans that worked for white bootleggers, if caught, were given higher fines and harsher punishments than whites (81-82). Often they could not afford the fines and were forced into public works projects like building roads (84). McGirr also writes about people who produced small amounts of alcohol to make extra money to support their families. Even for small amounts of alcohol, they were given harsh punishments, high fees, and long sentences. She writes that the poor were given these harsher punishments and that the rich were rarely convicted for Volstead violations (89). Other minority groups, such as Mexicans in Los Angeles, faced deportation and police abuse for violating the 18th Amendment (93). In this chapter, McGirr concludes that selective enforcement of marginalized groups and small mom and pop operations had little impact on the supply and demand of alcohol as big operations of wealthier residents went unscathed (99).
That being said, this book is definitely a popular press book and she makes a lot of sweeping generalizations. I don't think its fair for her to say that Prohibition is the main and only reason for this shift in political parties. I also don't think Prohibition is the sole reason for the war on drugs. She notes in her conclusion that a second war on drugs occurs in 1970. She jumps a couple decades and doesn't expand on that any further.
May 5, 2025
The War on Alcohol is not really about what it claims it’s about. It advertises itself as a book that draws parallels between Prohibition and the later War on Drugs, however, most of its chapters are devoted to a recounting of the history of Prohibition, with the primary focus on how Prohibition disproportionately targeted ethnic minorities, which is not really a novel argument, since most nonfiction narratives about Prohibition have pointed this out. It’s really only chapter seven and the conclusion that explicitly lay out the ways in which the expansion of state power and federal law enforcement during Prohibition laid the groundwork for the later War on Drugs. Since this book wasn’t as focused as I would’ve hoped, I wonder whether the author originally set out to write a more straightforward history of Prohibition and decided to pivot towards making a more specific argument as she was researching but didn’t want to excise the more general information she’d found on the history of Prohibition or if she’d started out with a specific thesis in mind but wasn’t able to find as much support for it as she’d hoped. Either way, I think this piece would’ve been stronger as an article instead of a book.
This author also engages in one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to academic writing, which is pretending that she’s challenging some calcified conventional wisdom when she’s actually expressing beliefs that are widely held in academic circles. No one in the twenty-first century still believes that Prohibition was a “noble experiment” and even by 2016, when this book was published, it was fairly mainstream to be concerned about mass incarceration, the criminalization of recreational drug use, and the negative impact the War on Drugs had on Black communities. Given how inaccessibly written and heavy on academic jargon this book was, I can’t imagine that it was written for a popular audience, why does McGirr pretend like she’s one of the first to make these arguments instead of preaching to a choir made up of fellow academics?
If you’re looking for a history of Prohibition and its social impact, I’d recommend reading Last Call by Daniel Okrent instead. It covers a lot of the same ground while adding some additional detail, and the writing style is much wittier and more accessible.
This author also engages in one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to academic writing, which is pretending that she’s challenging some calcified conventional wisdom when she’s actually expressing beliefs that are widely held in academic circles. No one in the twenty-first century still believes that Prohibition was a “noble experiment” and even by 2016, when this book was published, it was fairly mainstream to be concerned about mass incarceration, the criminalization of recreational drug use, and the negative impact the War on Drugs had on Black communities. Given how inaccessibly written and heavy on academic jargon this book was, I can’t imagine that it was written for a popular audience, why does McGirr pretend like she’s one of the first to make these arguments instead of preaching to a choir made up of fellow academics?
If you’re looking for a history of Prohibition and its social impact, I’d recommend reading Last Call by Daniel Okrent instead. It covers a lot of the same ground while adding some additional detail, and the writing style is much wittier and more accessible.
August 20, 2017
Lisa McGirr is obviously well versed in the history surrounding the prohibition. In that regard this book is good... and therein lies the only good.
This book is poorly written. It is not too academic; it simply lacks good writing. Many excellent historians write academically rigorous books, but they manage to find the overarching story threading together all the people, places, and dates into a cohesive and captivating narrative. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Steven and Hugh Ambrose, David McCullough, S. C. Gwynne, and Ronald C. White are just a few of the examples that come to mind. Sadly, McGirr does not demonstrate the same skill with history. Rather, she somehow manages to take a topic and era with a plethora of intriguing material (gangsters, corrupt politicians, moralistic crusaders, oppressed minorities, powerful elites, and a watershed period in the development of the federal government), and she turns it into the stuff of boring undergraduate lecture halls with glassy-eyed students nodding off as the professor drones on with a ceaseless recitation of seemingly random facts.
Bottom line: I was very disappointed in this book. It is well researched. However, McGirr has woefully failed to weave together a compelling narrative capturing more than the bare, dry facts of this period in history. If you want good history writing, check out any of the authors I mentioned above. If you want a GOOD read about the Prohibition era and its impact on American society, you'll have to look elsewhere. If you just want something that feels like a semester's worth of dry undergraduate lecture transcripts on the topic of the Prohibition, this is your book.
This book is poorly written. It is not too academic; it simply lacks good writing. Many excellent historians write academically rigorous books, but they manage to find the overarching story threading together all the people, places, and dates into a cohesive and captivating narrative. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Steven and Hugh Ambrose, David McCullough, S. C. Gwynne, and Ronald C. White are just a few of the examples that come to mind. Sadly, McGirr does not demonstrate the same skill with history. Rather, she somehow manages to take a topic and era with a plethora of intriguing material (gangsters, corrupt politicians, moralistic crusaders, oppressed minorities, powerful elites, and a watershed period in the development of the federal government), and she turns it into the stuff of boring undergraduate lecture halls with glassy-eyed students nodding off as the professor drones on with a ceaseless recitation of seemingly random facts.
Bottom line: I was very disappointed in this book. It is well researched. However, McGirr has woefully failed to weave together a compelling narrative capturing more than the bare, dry facts of this period in history. If you want good history writing, check out any of the authors I mentioned above. If you want a GOOD read about the Prohibition era and its impact on American society, you'll have to look elsewhere. If you just want something that feels like a semester's worth of dry undergraduate lecture transcripts on the topic of the Prohibition, this is your book.
August 6, 2017
There are many books about the implementation, failure and repeal of Prohibition. But McGirr has used her examination to make the compelling case that the Prohibition era laid the foundation for the growth of law enforcement, the increased rates of incarceration and the severe and alarmist attitudes about drugs that have characterized the American culture to this day.
Some of this is easily stated. When it was clear that Prohibition was failing, “dry” organizations looked to a war against drugs as a means to re-channel their opprobrium. Law enforcement entities, most notably the FBI, sprang up to fight the organized crime that spread during Prohibition. The number of citizens incarcerated exploded as jails and prisons filled up with those convicted of violating liquor laws.
But something else was evolving in American society then, and even after repeal: a growing social appetite for punitive action against those who deviated from “American” norms. The “war on drugs” proved to have more staying power than the lost war on liquor and the government and conservative institutions have used that war as a political tool of control. In red state America, that demand for control remains unassailable.
Despite the title, McGill makes her case only in the last fourth of the book; I would have preferred that she develop it still further with a look at American history after the 1930s. Perhaps a future book will do so.
Some of this is easily stated. When it was clear that Prohibition was failing, “dry” organizations looked to a war against drugs as a means to re-channel their opprobrium. Law enforcement entities, most notably the FBI, sprang up to fight the organized crime that spread during Prohibition. The number of citizens incarcerated exploded as jails and prisons filled up with those convicted of violating liquor laws.
But something else was evolving in American society then, and even after repeal: a growing social appetite for punitive action against those who deviated from “American” norms. The “war on drugs” proved to have more staying power than the lost war on liquor and the government and conservative institutions have used that war as a political tool of control. In red state America, that demand for control remains unassailable.
Despite the title, McGill makes her case only in the last fourth of the book; I would have preferred that she develop it still further with a look at American history after the 1930s. Perhaps a future book will do so.
October 26, 2020
McGirr didn't engage with any sort of critical race theory, which seemed like an oversight when writing about criminalization and incarceration. Having just read two other books on the development of the carceral state in an AfAm colloquium, I was surprised that McGirr does not reference Hicks (2010) or LaFlouria (2015) (Hicks' book on black women's policing & incarceration in NYC had been out for 6 years). Hicks would have added much commentary, and possibly contradictions, to what McGirr had to say about policing women in Prohibition (i.e. the "hostess traffic" in NY [McGirr 118]). Reviewers call The War on Alcohol a work of prison studies, and though I'm not familiar with the field, it seems an oversight to not address Hicks in an argument on building the "federal penal state" (McGirr xxi). Also, in the index, "African-Americans in federal prisons" only merited an endnote. In light of our discussion last week, and Ngai's historicizing how the state used/uses racial and ethnic categories, I found McGirr's 74 uses of "ethnic" oddly general and dismissive for a book written in 2016. What does it mean to claim "bosses built ethnic loyalties in exchange for services"? She uses the term in a variety of places, for a variety of meanings; here it's to describe a Polish neighborhood (photo pages). Pardon my French, but what the hell are "ethnic voters"? (66). Isn't every voter some ethnicity, since the US government uses the term to categorize people?
Read
March 8, 2020Reading this for a second time. McGirr's key point is that histories of the development of the American state tend to overlook Prohibition's role, a missing chapter between the progressive era and the New Deal. That point is embedded in a dense reconstruction of Prohibition's position at the intersection of numerous interacting social dynamics, including the declining power of a white Protestant elite in the face of immigration, a nascent women's liberation movement, popular social anxieties over crime and morality, capitalist opposition to an expansive state, party realignment, and the anti-German sentiment entailed by the first world war. The book also touches on the development of American policing and incarceration, and illuminates the parallels and differences between the war on alcohol and the war on drugs. Density, complexity and academic rigour do not come at the expense of clarity. Highly recommended.
January 4, 2022
It's a shame this book is so heavily criticized for its poor writing. Though it may be repetitive and verbose, I don't think it's intended audience is pop history readers. This is undoubtedly one of the most well-researched books I've read.
Its coverage of the citizen enforcer of Prohibition was particularly interesting to me as my grandmother grew up on a farmstead where the neighbors to the north were known moonshiners. She remembers being 8 or 9 when the Klan took matters into their own hands, burning crosses outside their property as an intimidation technique.
I also loved the chapter on shifting political alliances where we learn the role Prohibition played in the construction of the current Democratic party platform and its working-class base.
This book really shined in its discussion of the building of the American penal state. Even more alarming are the findings of the Wickersham Commission, where contemporaey critiques of Prohibiton and law enforcement techniques were swept under the rug by the Hoover administration. Its findings still hold relevance today and are still ignored.
Loved this read!
Its coverage of the citizen enforcer of Prohibition was particularly interesting to me as my grandmother grew up on a farmstead where the neighbors to the north were known moonshiners. She remembers being 8 or 9 when the Klan took matters into their own hands, burning crosses outside their property as an intimidation technique.
I also loved the chapter on shifting political alliances where we learn the role Prohibition played in the construction of the current Democratic party platform and its working-class base.
This book really shined in its discussion of the building of the American penal state. Even more alarming are the findings of the Wickersham Commission, where contemporaey critiques of Prohibiton and law enforcement techniques were swept under the rug by the Hoover administration. Its findings still hold relevance today and are still ignored.
Loved this read!
October 2, 2017
I learned so much! McGirr does a great job of providing ample context for understanding a really interesting time period. For example, I didn't realize how much racism and classism was a big part of prohibition. I should've thought about those things, but I think many people get swept away with the romance of the roaring 20s that they don't necessarily think about the cultural forces that were rebelling and creating that excitement. I had no idea how closely the KKK it was working with the other anti-liquor advocates, but it makes total sense. Restricting The actions of others based on some faulty moral high ground is not a new thing, and it makes sense that all sorts of groups who like to do that would be together to keep "undesirables" from meeting and having a good time.
September 7, 2024
After reading a lot about tobacco and food, I've been wanting to read about alcohol for a long time. I was especially curious to hear more about the way prohibition was started and soon repealed. This book met all the expectations. I learnt a lot about the origins of prohibitionism, and why it appeared relatively suddenly on the national agenda. It was a lucky coincidence, as it often happens, but also very much in line with the Zeitgesit. I also found very interesting to learn about the consequences of prohibitionism, including the selective enforcement and the rise of gang crime. I was less convinced how this teaches lessons about contemporary American politics, but maybe that's simply because it's not my field.
March 26, 2021
I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.
I listened to the new audiobook version of this book and while it was very dense, I loved it. I think I would have retained more of the information if it had been paper, because there was so much , but I still learned many things about our history that I never knew or that we try to hide. I want to talk it about it so much, but I will spare you the spoilers. The narrator managed to provide the information in a way that kept me intrigued and I liked listening to it. I recommend this for anyone who lives in the US, not just those of us who still deal with the legislation that we ended up with!
I listened to the new audiobook version of this book and while it was very dense, I loved it. I think I would have retained more of the information if it had been paper, because there was so much , but I still learned many things about our history that I never knew or that we try to hide. I want to talk it about it so much, but I will spare you the spoilers. The narrator managed to provide the information in a way that kept me intrigued and I liked listening to it. I recommend this for anyone who lives in the US, not just those of us who still deal with the legislation that we ended up with!
April 8, 2021
This is an eye-opening, fascinating study of how the earliest roots of the dry movement found fertile ground in a nativist, Protestant moral panic seeing folk devils among Catholic immigrants and African-Americans. The federalization of the movement incorporating the KKK and other paramilitary enforcers along the way defined the national approach to domestic crime in ways that are still with us while also providing a path forward for the Democratic Party from the Al Smith 1928 presidential campaign to FDR to today's dynamic between the major parties as well as white grievance politics in general.
December 10, 2018
What a great book! I love history - this book was not only about American history, but super enjoyable to read! I'm amazed at how detrimental Prohibition was to America and created more vice then had they left alcohol legal as it was. A true lesson to learn when you attempt to regulate American morals. We could learn a lot from this book - what Americans do in their private life is their business and the government needs to stay out of it. I highly recommend this book to all Americans, not just history lovers!
February 18, 2019
I really wanted this book to be good. It was kind of a dud.
The main argument is that prohibition is responsible for the growth of government in the 20th c. Fine. I guess. But there was also the Great Depression and World War II.
The real problem is this just isn't very well-written. The chapters read a bit like lectures. Very broad. Interested more in abstractions than people.
Prohibition was so transformative, and so complicated, spanned a lot of years and involved all sorts of characters, and I wanted a book that would grab readers by the throat. This isn't it, sadly.
The main argument is that prohibition is responsible for the growth of government in the 20th c. Fine. I guess. But there was also the Great Depression and World War II.
The real problem is this just isn't very well-written. The chapters read a bit like lectures. Very broad. Interested more in abstractions than people.
Prohibition was so transformative, and so complicated, spanned a lot of years and involved all sorts of characters, and I wanted a book that would grab readers by the throat. This isn't it, sadly.
July 25, 2019
This was unexpectedly the best book I’ve ever read on Prohibition. I grabbed it expecting another tale of the glamorized struggle between bootleggers and Prohibition agents... that I’ve read numerous times. Instead, I got something fresh. This book details the large aspect of the rise of Prohibition that is not given enough rightful attention... America’s history of disdain for immigrants and minorities. The book goes into detail about the open coalition between Protestant churches and the KKK with Prohibition.
July 16, 2023
McGirr does a really excellent job of tracing the roots of the war on drugs back to Prohibition. While we are familiar with considering Prohibition in the genealogy of the Progressive reform movement, McGirr also tracks the origins of the late-twentieth-century Religious Right in the Protestant nativist sentiment that launched prohibition. This is a good general history that is very accessible to read and pretty jargon-free. It's full of illustrations of places where the law had unintended consequences - my favorite is the grandma who is repeatedly arrested for making moonshine.
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