Product Description

On January 16, 1920, America went dry. For the next thirteen years, the Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the making, selling, or transportation of "intoxicating liquors," heralding a new era of crime and corruption on all levels of society. Instead of eliminating alcohol, Prohibition spurred more drinking than ever before. Formerly law-abiding citizens brewed moonshine, became rumrunners, and frequented speakeasies. Druggists, who could dispense "medicinal quantities" of alcohol, found their customer base exploding overnight. So many people from all walks of life defied the ban that Will Rogers famously quipped, "Prohibition is better than no liquor at all." Here is the full, rollicking story of those tumultuous days, from the flappers of the Jazz Age and the "beautiful and the damned" who drank their lives away in smoky speakeasies to bootlegging gangstersÑPretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, Al CaponeÑand the notorious St. Valentine's Day Massacre. In an America still struggling with the problems of alcohol and drug dependency, Prohibition will strike an especially meaningful chord for today's readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #292296 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com 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.

From Publishers Weekly
Prohibition did not go into effect until 1920, but, with the early Americans notorious for heavy drinking, numerous groups had been trying to ban alcohol for decades. Although there were several well-known temperance advocates in the early 1800s, prohibitionists were derailed by a series of more pressing national matters?the abolitionist movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction. The "dry" cause picked up speed in 1893 with the formation of the Anti-Saloon League. Led by Wayne Wheeler, the ASL was a formidable lobbying group that was able to turn prohibition into a patriotic issue during WWI. With the conclusion of the war, and with the ASL and Wheeler at the height of their powers, passage of the Volstead Act was a foregone conclusion. Behr (The Last Emperor) tracks the 13 years of Prohibition primarily through the actions of Wheeler, bootlegger George Remus and Chicago mayor "Big Bill" Thomson, and in doing so stresses the corruption of politicians and law enforcement officials that made carrying out the 18th Amendment all but impossible. Behr calls Prohibition a disaster that helped cause some of today's problems by spurring the growth of organized crime. He also sees similarities between Prohibition and the current fight against drugs, and argues that an overhaul of antidrug legislation is long overdue. Although Behr's work is not a comprehensive examination of the Prohibition era, it is informative and entertaining from start to finish. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A&E, the Arts and Entertainment cable television channel, intends to produce a three-part miniseries based on this book, an interesting and readable history of the prohibition era. A journalist by trade, Behr masterly integrates family tales and expert interviews into his account of bootlegging, speakeasies, gangsterism, and racketeering. Although much of his book repeats what is already known about the troubled Twenties, it manages to break new ground by thoroughly telling the story of George Remus, a Cincinnati lawyer who became an influential bootlegger. Several chapters are devoted to Remus's business practices and associations with the likes of Harry Daugherty, Warren G. Harding's attorney general. The Remus story nicely illustrates the pervasive corruption of the period and will likely receive much attention in the upcoming television program. As A&E's interest in the book might suggest, it is written for general audiences. Recommended for public and undergraduate collections.?Raymond J. Palin, St. Thomas Univ., Miami, Fla.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A biography of George Remus
Overall, the book is a good source on Prohibition, but far from comprehensive. Contrary to the title, Behr spends a third of the book talking about the years leading up to Prohibition. The rest of the book goes into hair splitting detail on the career and trial of George Remus, known as the King of Bootleggers. I personally used the book as a source in writing my own book on Prohibition, but I only really used a couple of tidbits from it. If the Prohibition era were a song, Behr's book would be the countermelody, missing the general theme of the era. The book is good, but the title should be changed to "George Remus and the History of the Prohibition Movement." If you are interested in Prohibition check out:
Alcohol, Boat Chases, and Shootouts! How the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Fought Rum Smugglers and Pirates (Part I: 1919-1924)

Near Beer Tastes Flat
Edward Behr's book provides an adequate, if somewhat unexceptional, survey of the Prohibition Era, but the author relies too often on other secondary sources. As such, the book never rises above the routine. Behr takes a breezy approach to the material, so this particular book cannot be considered serious scholarship.

There are some instances of sloppiness and a lack of attention to detail. "Dan O'Banion" was not the name of a prominent Chicago bootlegger (Dean O'Banion was the actual person). The chapter on Chicago during Prohibition is riddled with similar errors and mistakes. Morris Eller and Emanuel Eller were not prominent Chicago Democrats. Mayor William Dever was not a committed "Dry." Although Clarence Darrow was often identified with the Democratic Party, he served in the Illinois General Assembly as a Prohibition Party representative, but Behr identifies him as a lifelong "Wet." The notorious criminal gang from St. Louis was known as "Egan's Rats," not "Regan's Rats."

Behr devotes considerable time to the lobbyists from the Anti-Saloon League, but minimizes the roles played by feminists and progressives in promoting prohibition. Frances Willard, a leader at Northwestern University and an advocate of women's suffrage, was also the leader of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. After the repeal of prohibition, it became fashionable to blame the passage of the amendment solely on the evangelicals and religious fanatics, but the feminists and progressives must also be held accountable and share in the overall blame.

There are some interesting and entertaining anecdotes conveyed in the book, but the treatment of the topic is definitely lightweight and stereotypical. Behr manages to recycle some old canards about William Hale Thompson and Warren Harding, but still manages to outline some of the essentials.

The Noble Experiment
Edward Behr is a journalist and war correspondent who wrote this very readable book. Was Prohibition an attempt by the Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment to keep a cultural standard (p.3)? America had traditionally been "wet", and Prohibition did not come from the Bible. Was alcohol the cause of working class poverty and crime (p.4)? Poverty was created by being a wage-earner who earned less and didn't work full time. Legalization of alcohol resulted in public health problems, prohibition lead to increased crime plus public health problems. The XVIII Amendment gave the Federal government the power to control alcohol. The Volstead Act created Prohibition, a trick denounced by those who only wanted to ban liquor. The lobbyists for Prohibition set an example in passing laws that is used by Gun Prohibitionists today.

Chapter 1 tells of traditional consumption of hard liquor in America (p.9). Behr suggests Prohibition became an important question because there were few other major issues (p.10). Taverns had a long history of political involvement since Colonial times. [Would banning taverns prohibit political organizing by working men?] The church and the taverns were social centers (p.11). Prohibition was tried and failed in 1735 Georgia (p.13). The famous Dr. Benjamin Rush first questioned the traditional value of alcohol (p.15). Liquor may have killed more native Americans than White Man's diseases and firearms (p.18). Temperance societies began advocating Prohibition by the 1830s (p.19). Once drinking became a sin myths were created to justify this belief. Drinking caused spontaneous combustion of the drinker (p.22)! In 1851 Maine became the first state to prohibit the sale of liquor (p.29). This was copied in other states (p.30), then quickly repealed (p.31). Prohibition was wrong to deny all rights just because a few abuse their rights. Lincoln said that Prohibition was un-American (p.33). While the war against liquor was the first women's mass movement, their leaders were mostly men (Chapter 3). [Was that like adopting a new style that was in vogue?]

Famous women Prohibitionists were Frances Elizabeth Willard (p.38) and Carry Nation (p.40). Both had personal quirks. The WCTU was followed by the US Brewers Association (p.47). Women's suffrage became a political football. Prohibitionists were a mixed bag of liberals and conservatives (p.48). The Anti-Saloon League (ASL), controlled by Big Corporations, became one of the strongest lobbies in the country (p.49). The new urban changes brought increases in poverty and crime. Prohibition claimed to be the "silver bullet" that would end poverty and crime. [How can anyone be against that?] The tactics of the ASL are described (p.55). They used volunteers to support a rich businessman who supported "dry" politics to defeat a "wet", even if their candidate drank (p.56). They were able to defeat a Republican governor in the staunchly Republican state of Ohio (p.57). Scientists had evidence of the evils of alcohol (p.59). In 1917 the ASL had a new argument: Prohibition was Patriotic (Chapter 5). President William H. Taft warned against it (p.80). Washington state had showed what would happen (p.84). One reason the Big Corporations turned against Prohibition was higher income taxes (Chapter 16). The wealthy did not suffer from Prohibition (Chapter 17).

Behr is wrong in some of his details: pages 143, 83 "barely enough". Chapter 8 tells about Warren Harding, who was sterile, and could not have fathered Nan Britton's child (p.109). Was Harding's sexual activities any different from most 20th century Presidents? That TV series came out in 1958 (Chapter 13). Lima is in Ohio not "Kentucky" (p.237).