Customer Reviews

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an all-encompassing view of what lead up to the creation of the 18th ammendment(and its earliest roots which went back pretty far in american history) and its eventual downfall and lightening fast repeal.
I chose this book as a Vine selection because it sounded as though it went beyond the common perception of bathtub gin, speakeasies, and G-men in a Warner Bros. movie smashing trucks full of beer kegs. In fact, it did go way beyond that. Daniel Okrent's book is a lively source of all things Prohibition. He provides a rather in-depth history of how special interest groups such as the KKK and church groups and people such as Billy Sunday, Wayne Wheeler and Carrie Nation banded together to popularize the idea of prohibition and how the concept picked up steam politically via lobbying to enforce a law nationally that the public at large really didn't support. The book discusses the key players nationally who supported and also opposed this bill and provided background material/biographies of these people. The implementation of the bill as well as the go-arounds such as bootleg booze and speakeasies are discussed, and the reader is supplied with information regarding how this stuff (some of which proving quite toxic) was made. Also discussed is the general public disatisfaction with the bill and the reasons for its rapid decline/downfall in depression-era America.
One of the things I particularly liked (and possibly even loved) were some of the unexpected little gems such as the way alcoholic beverages were marketed to a pre-prohibition public, the background information on some of the beer barons and distillers and how they rode out the 'dry' spell. Of particular interest was the way in which the ordinary lives of the american people were changed. New products appeared on store shelves and near beers appeared (but had to be carefully marketed to avoid violation of the specific terms spelled out legally). Home winemaking became more popular. I also appreciated the extreme footnoting and indexing which referred back to specific portions of the ammendment and its execution.
The promotional information provided with my advance copy said this book would be the basis of a Ken Burns series on Prohibition. While reading this book, I kept that in mind. My greatest praise for this book is that I could see how easily the book could be transitioned and how a series would be as enjoyable a viewing experience as reading this book has been. In spite of the language used (you may need a dictionary to decipher some of the words that are no longer in common usage)this book isn't as dry as its topic suggests. It is very easy to read, yet thought provoking.
LAST CALL in general terms is an interesting look at Prohibition from multiple perspectives. I think it would particularly interesting to anyone who is into history, constitutional law, depression-era politics, political lobbying, advertising, special interest groups, or womens rights.

This book masquerades as a book full of great stories and wonderful personalities - some well known, some utterly new - told with effortless wit at a pace that makes you keep breaking promises to yourself: "I'll read just ONE more chapter, before ...." {you fill in the blank: going to bed, making love on your wedding night, speaking before the UN General Assembly, surrendering to serve your term at Allentown).
But the mean thing about this book is that it also tells the whole story of prohibition, weaving together its emergence from various social, ethnic, political and religious roots, showing its connection to the great themes of the twentieth century, how prohibition was advanced by an alliance between what we would describe today as doctrinaire progressives, left-wing feminists and the religious right, and furnishing a social history of the West in the 19th, 20th and no doubt 21st centuries which more profoundly explains where we are and how we got here than many a more pretentious tome. It's just marvelous and will keep you thinking about it long after you've finally made your speech, formalized your wedding, served your time.

Prohibition was the best of intentions; it was the worst of results. A burning passion to cure the world of intoxication begat a wildfire of unintended consequences that permanently changed the American political landscape like no event since the civil war. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution--the first to curtail rather than to protect liberty--was imposed in a bipartisan political landslide of moral fervor led by fiery evangelicals bent on saving Americans from Demon Rum: an idea that had gathered 60 years of steam & brimstone, and whose time had finally come. Prohibition also created powerful new constituencies that profited from its continuance. Even its detractors became hopelessly resigned to its permanence.

It was not a revolution made led by dull people. The morally excited are, for all their dryness (pun intended), more animated, more colorful than the skeptical or the wise. Here the dramatis personnae of this tragicomedy seem more than merely memorable, they come to life on the page. But even in the limelight of the author's wit, prohibitionists don't seem caricatured, uneducated or stupid. (How could they have known? The lessons of hindsight were waiting offstage.) The complex tale of their successful constitutional coup is chronicled here in far more complex depth and detail than you might expect, yet the narrative flows quickly among the actors and events without losing momentum. The avalanche of startling facts and grotesque statistics are leavened with enough really good writing to yield laugh-out-loud descriptions, outrageous quotes and incisive commentary. Along with familiar folks like Rev. Billy Sunday, Carrie Nation, Andrew Volstead, et.al., Daniel Okrent introduces us to the forgotten workaholics who engineered this disastrous triumph of prescriptive moralizing.

Not all the consequences of prohibition were unforeseen. Anti-booze activists were instrumental in passing the 16th Amendment in 1913 authorizing a federal income tax in anticipation of the end of alcohol taxes--then the federal government's 2nd largest revenue source (after tariff duties). The bulldog fixation on winning and keeping the prohibition prize created all sorts of odd bedfellows: suffragettes and Ku Klux Klansmen, Boston puritans and rural sharecroppers, and later on, the bootleggers and prosecutors, smugglers and judges. When prohibition finally arrived, it rode in on the coattails the anti-German hysteria of World War One: most of the nation's brewers had Germanic surnames. Widespread anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic sentiments had heavily fertilized the grass roots of the cause.

And so this catastrophically bad idea was made law by a lopsided legislative majority representing a demographic minority. The the constitutionally mandated congressional reapportionment to reflect the 1920 census was deliberately (and illegally) delayed 8 years to keep that majority intact. But nothing could prevent the unprecedented mass civil disobedience which followed prohibition's victory. The Twenties roared because all liquor laws (save the infamous Volstead Act) had been effectively swept away. Once the fruit was forbidden, it quickly became glamorous, accessible, and demand exploded. With the flotilla of smugglers, an army of bootleggers, and dense constellations of speakeasies came a flood tide of corruption that inundated nearly every police precinct, courtroom, and customs house in the nation. New fault lines appeared: civil service laws were bypassed to give the Anti-Saloon League control of federal liquor enforcement hiring, but state legislatures and local officials were often uncooperative (or obstructive) for a variety of reasons.

To prosecute so many millions of victimless crimes would have bankrupted America in a month. So the token fine and a metastasizing culture of bribery soon replaced enforcement. The profits of crime ballooned. Al Capone is alleged to have made $60 million in a single year. Soon the Klan would be deputized to terrorize moonshiners--and all too predictably, others. Later, Congress would pass the Jones Act "get tough" and "send a message"--like life imprisonment for repeat moonshine sellers. Sound familiar? Wood alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, and even deadlier intoxicants became common bootleg additives. The phrase "blind drunk" originated in prohibition. A neuropathic chemical pollutant would permanently cripple some 500 tipplers in Wichita. (The vindictive crocodile tears of sympathy would be echoed by defenders of Paraquat in the 1980s).

Even economics becomes mesmerizing as legally "dry" America experiences skyrocketing commodity prices for the ingredients of fermentation and the nation's residential cellars (and even bathtubs) are converted to forbidden production. But the irritations and absurdities of alcohol criminalization evolved slowly into political outrage, and like it's entry, prohibition's exit was kicked forward by the hard boot of circumstance: the stock market crash of 1929 and the the Great Depression. That it was overthrown so unexpectedly and so decisively is another part of a tale well worth telling, and in Daniel Okrent's "Last Call" it is wonderfully told. Almost none of this rollicking history is spent on prohibition's moral lessons or drawing parallels to the War on Drugs. They're just too obvious. If you've recently been bored by history books that don't hold your interest, this may be the kind of fun reading you''ve been waiting for.

This is one awesome book and it's not just about Prohibition. This book is also about the social turmoils in America after the Civil War through the 1930s. Daniel Okrent put a lot of time researching for this book and compiling the information into logical and related subjects.

What I enjoyed about this book is not just learning about the behind-the-scenes details that went on in this country as early as the 1840s, but realizing how determined religious groups, anti-alcohol groups, certain ethnic immigrant groups, businessmen (brewers and distillers) and even the women's suffrage groups were in pushing for the 18th Amendment. These groups perhaps got more (or less?) than they initially lobbied for, but final laws in Congress never end up being carbon-copies of initial proposals.

Okrent lets us know from the first pages that we are and were a country of drinkers. Women stayed at home and raised the children, but also were victims of alcohol abuse by the men who spent too much time at local saloons and taverns where hard laborers spent what little pay they made "washing away their troubles." Liberal drug laws of the 19th century didn't help matters, either.

Okrent breaks down the story of Prohibition, how it grew, how it affected American society and why the 18th Amendment had to be repealed (loss of massive tax revenue and the surge in organized crime) into three parts: The Struggle, The Flood and The War of the Wet and the Dry. I found Chapter 14, "The Way we Drank", which details the time just before Prohibition became law, as especially interesting as we see the ethnic and social classes panicking; gangsters rose to prominence because of Prohibition.

Critical thinkers of this book will realize that this topic of Prohibition is still a timely subject. What if we were to legalize marijuana, for example, or loosen alcohol laws? We still have dry counties (especially in the South) and we still have Blue Laws on the books, and this book clearly explains the history behind all our weird alcohol laws.

If there is a complaint about this book it's that at times it is so detailed that it reads like a textbook. But a good textbook describes not just the facts and gives names and dates, it also gives reasons for the "Why" and "How" of events and discusses the significance of each. Okrent does this very well in "The Last Call."

Another complaint--or compliment, really--is that Okrent's vocabulary is so extensive that I made it a habit to look up one unknown word every few pages until I learned most of Okrent's high-end words: augury, anodyne, apotheosis, postprandial, imprimatur, calumny, dithyramb, pecuniary just to name a few. Okrent's often use of high-end words, however, never takes away from comprehending the text.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in our social history of 1840s through the 1930s. You don't have to be a beer lover or whiskey sipper to enjoy this book as Okrent isn't biased in his information or analysis. The characters in this book, from Wilson, Harding, Coolidge or even Rockefeller and Carnegie and Anheuser and Busch all make the chapters fascinating to read.

Prohibition, which banned the sale of most alcoholic beverages in the United States for nearly 14 years between January 1920 and December 1933 by Constitutional amendment, was a socio-political phenomenon of such great impact that American culture has been permeated by its repercussions ever since. When reading 20th century history, one cannot help but stumble over references to the great social experiment, whether they concern politics, law, religion, women's lib, organized crime, economics, government, or just about any other aspect of American life. And many fine books have been dedicated to specific aspects of prohibition. But Daniel Okrent's "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" tries to bring together all aspects of Prohibition, from its causes to its results, its supporters and detractors, losers and profiteers, into one volume.

Everything we know about Prohibition obviously wouldn't fit into one book. But Okrent does an excellent job of taking the reader through the salient points of Prohibition's ratification, practice, enforcement, and repeal. He divides his study into four sections that address the fight for prohibition by the forces of temperance, the methods by which imbibers and bootleggers adapted, the ongoing political war between "wets" and "drys", and, finally, the movement to repeal the 18th Amendment. Okrent presents a large and varied cast of characters. From the leadership of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) to that of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), rum runners and gangsters, dry suffragettes and bootlegging rabbis, and unfortunate victims of Prohibition's violence and poisonous booze, we see America during Prohibition.

Okrent points out that Prohibition did genuinely reduce American alcohol consumption on the whole (though not for all demographics), but also that it was easier to get alcohol during those years than it would be after repeal. Pushed through state legislatures by a bizarre coalition of progressives, racists, suffragists, populists, nativists, and the ASL, Prohibition "encouraged criminality and institutionalized hypocrisy" more than it did abstinence. It left a long and starling legacy that includes national organized crime syndicates, Las Vegas, consolidation of beer producers, women in politics, the dinner party, soft drinks, and NASCAR. The great service that "Last Call" performs is tying it all together. We get the big picture and enough of the details to make it interesting and comprehensible. Though I've read other books on Prohibition, I appreciate "Last Call" as a guide to its many tentacles.

Daniel Okrent has written an entertaining and thorough history of Prohibition, starting with the political and social organizations of the late 19th century whose decades of lobbying and gradually refined lobbying techniques resulted in the passing of the 18th Amendment. He then discusses how citizens (nearly universally) ignored the law, how bootleggers produced alcohol and brought it to market, how the government responded, and how very rapidly it came to an end once the Great Depression started.

Though this time period is often featured in fiction and in movies, I found myself repeatedly surprised at how little of this story I already knew. The mutual dependence of the Prohibition movement and Women's suffrage, for example, or the effective nullification of Prohibition by the very Congress that had passed it, as they never allocated money for enforcement. Okrent also has a good sense for amusing anecdote, especially about the larger-than-life characters who violated the law once it was in place (including many members of Congress and of every presidential administration from 1919 to 1933).

The most interesting material in the book, I think, is the discussion of the various *legal* ways that alcohol was produced in the United States or shipped here under prohibition. Demand for drink was so strong that even small loopholes in the law were torn open. "Medicinal" alcohol, "sacramental" wine, even home brewing kits became massive industries.

Between the engaging writing and the Ken Burns documentary to come, it is inevitable that this book will be widely read. As the story of Prohibition sheds light on modern pressure group politics, drug legalization, and fluidity of political alliances, America will be better for having read it. (The term "pressure group" was invented, by the way, to describe those agitating for Prohibition.)

The book's one great weakness is that Okrent seems to have felt compelled to include every anecdote he could find about people who later became famous for non-prohibition activities (or whose children would later become famous). Thus, for example, we have a bizarre excursion about a shopkeeper who may have sold bootleg liquor in the late 1920s. Why is he mentioned? He was the father of Ivan Boesky. At the end of the book, after Prohibition has been repealed and Okrent has completed the "where are they now" review of the people and organizations responsible, he adds a long discussion of the fact that Joe Kennedy wasn't a bootlegger, though some people thought he was. It feels terribly out of place; if he couldn't find any place to discuss the Kennedys in the body of the text, he should have left them out altogether.

I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could.

This book had me hooked from the first page. It is a page turner and a great civics lesson. As others have commented I realized how little I knew about Prohibition, what was going on in America that motivated the "Drys" to ban alcohol, how quickly it all failed, the corruption, the hypocrisy that followed and equally how it was repealed and all the major characters and strong personalities involved. Amazing how such famous people of that era can be forgotten so quickly.

So many lessons could be learned. Obviously it provokes discussion on what other banned products should be brought into the open such as marihuana where the laws on prohibition are flaunted frequently but the costs of getting caught far out strip the crimes committed. For me I wonder when our college campuses will stop driving students to hide behind doors binge drinking instead of socializing alcohol into daily life. Treat them like adults, encourage moderation and be tolerant.

Okrent does a wonderful job building the basis of the dry movement which was the very high levels of alcohol being consumed in the United States at the time and the seedy and dangerous type establishments that were serving. Similarly the gradual escalation of enforcement and penalties for the alcohol related offenses culminating in the Jones Law show just how far our personal liberties were abused and stripped. The unwillingness of the Congress to reapportion after the 1920 census is a shocking confirmation of how the laws and the Constitution were ignored and manipulated. Our government, police forces, legal system and even society were all corroding in ways that were very poorly anticipated.

I don't know whether I am depressed by how the country was seemingly hijacked by special interest groups or that I should be proud that saner minds and powerful groups emerged to repeal the act. Perhaps their motivations were not completely pure but it was indeed critical to rid ourselves of an Amendment that could be ignored almost completely and yet could also be enforced at the whim of lawmen who may or were just as corrupt as everyone else in the alcohol food chain (ha ha). Net-net I think it shows America at its best that it was finally reversed and peacefully. How many governments could enact such a radical law and then enforce it so poorly or inconsistently and still be respected enough that there were not open rebellions against them?

Most of our history focuses on wars or the Depression. I think this book takes a big step in putting Prohibition on the same stage as the other key events that have defined American.

Three side notes:
1: On Kindle I noticed a lot of typos and the layout was quite poor. Footnotes are pushed to the back of each chapter instead of the bottom of the page or next page where these points would be much better appreciated.
2: Okrent refers to a number of people in the book as short at 5'6" or 5'7". I did a Google search and most sources say this was the average height of men at that time so not sure why he would refer to them as short. Even today that's only an inch or 2 below average. Hardly noteworthy.
3: Okrent has a ton of very funny quotes throughout the book. I'd like it if he listed them in the back!

Prohibition's passage was the result of many subplots and separate agendas. This book puts them together. Some supported woman suffrage or direct election of senators to pass prohibition. Others opposed in the hope it would result in the removal of the income tax. There also was the impact of World War I on the passage. Like today, nothing is simple.

This book also had the best description of successful single issue lobbying and pressure that I have ever read. I wonder if the NRA and other such groups had studied the Anti Salon League.

After discussing the passage, the implementation also said so much about our system today. Congress passed the laws but would not pay to have them enforced. Substantial changes in the criminal law constitutional system developed as a result of prohibition. All set forth wonderfully in this book. The most upsetting part of the whole book was the point that the Untouchables were really not.

I was disappointed that the repeal of Prohibition was too quickly covered. The only false note was the detailed discussion of Joe Kennedy. It was okay but seemed too defensive.

All in all this was a tremendous read that also taught a great deal.

It's manifestly worth your time. For general knowledge and cultural literacy, ten popular history books of this caliber equal about 2 years in college, I'd guess.

But mainly I'm just balancing out the 1-star reviews of people complaining about Kindle pricing.

While the subject is very interesting and the analysis is very thorough and fresh, the style of writing makes the book tedious to read. The author uses too many quotes to make his point instead of just telling the story. It would have read better if he used his own words to express the thoughts and feelings of those he wrote about instead of trying to insert their words into his sentences. An occasional quote is effective but every other sentence is overkill.