Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America [Hardcover]

Edward Behr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1996 | ISBN-10: 1559703563 | ISBN-13: 978-1559703567 | Edition: 1

The basis of a forthcoming television series on the Arts and Entertainment cable network, an illustrated survey of the age of Prohibition covers the ill-fated Eighteenth Amendment, the St. Valentine's Day massacre, the speakeasies, the gangsters, and the bootleggers. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing; 1 edition (September 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559703563
• ISBN-13: 978-1559703567
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,757,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I Wanted More Social Context, April 22, 2003

By 

Stephen Cannon (Yokohama, Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (Paperback)

Mr. Behr's book gets off to a good start, with the first 70 or so pages describing historical attitudes towards liquor in the 19th century in the U.S. and how attitudes toward alcohol grew less and less permissive over the years.

However, the remaining 175 pages or so is like a biography of George Remus and the major players behind illicit alcohol manufacture and transport. While this was interesting up to a point, there was far more about the lives of these people than I cared to read, and I found myself skipping many pages.

Also, I was disappointed that Mr. Behr skirted the involvement of the mafia during the prohibition era, with only a brief mention of such household prohibition-era gangsters as Al Capone and "Lucky" Luciano.

I wished Mr. Behr would have taken a more humanistic perspective and taken us inside speakeasies, examined the social impacts of prohibition such as the growth in the popularity of jazz during prohibition, and explored the attitudes of the numerous otherwise law-abiding citizens who had no problems with drinking liquor illegally.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I wish that the author would have structured it differently.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Liquor? Think Again!, December 13, 1999

By 

Emily Childs (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (Paperback)

Considering the topic material covered, this was an excellent book. It was very informative and displayed much needed facts in an easy to read manner. I read this book for a history class and it gave me good insight on the early twentieth century. The book was slow to begin with but farther into it, it became more interesting covering such details as the highly influential gangsters of the time as well as the politicians, who were not so surprisingly involved in the underworld. I recommend this as a very informative book for those who have trouble finding easy-to-read material concerning American history.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guaranteed To Make You Think, August 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (Paperback)

I found this to be a good book in two ways.
First, it gave an interesting and quite accurate account of what America was like under Prohibition. For students and amateur historians seeking to learn about the Roaring 20s, this would be a good choice.
Secondly, this book has relevance to our own time as well. As the author constantly notes, there are many parallels between Prohibition in the 20s and today's "War on Drugs." What I found most tragic about the campaign to outlaw alcohol in the 20s was the naivte of people in authority, thinking they could change behavior through legislation. As history shows, the 18th Amendment led not to the elimination of alcohol consumption in America, but rather to a general disrespect for law and law enforcement personnel. And the absence of most legal liquor simply resulted in a profusion of illegal liquor, which in turn enriched and encouraged the notorious "gangsters" of the era.
This book has made me rethink my opinion of the "War on Drugs," and on Prohibition itself. I am not a drinker, nor do I use drugs; so I have always had an indifferent attitude toward prohibition legislation, perhaps sometimes even leaning in favor of a legal clampdown. However, after reading Mr. Behr's account of what happened to America during the 13 years of Prohibition, I now seriously doubt both the effectiveness and the wisdom of such laws.
Perhaps the New York politician of the era, Fiorello La Guardia, had it right when he said, "Excessive drinking [and drug use, for that matter] can be curbed by education, not legislation."
To sum up, this is a book that will not only teach you a bit of history; it will also make you think. I recommend it!