Okrent covers the gangland explosion that Prohibition triggered-and rightly deromanticizes it-but he has a wider agenda that addresses the entire effect enforced temperance had on our social, political, and legal conventions. There has been, of course, quite a lot of writing that has touched on the 14 years, 1919–1933, when the United States tried to legislate drinking out of existence, but the great bulk of it has been as background to one mobster tale or another. The result may not be as scintillating as the perfect gin gimlet, but it comes mighty close, an assiduously researched, well-written, and continually eye-opening work on what has actually been a neglected subject.

Now he has taken on a more formidable subject: the origins, implementation, and failure of that great American delusion known as Prohibition. Daniel Okrent has proven to be one of our most interesting and eclectic writers of nonfiction over the past 25 years, producing books about the history of Rockefeller Center and New England, baseball, and his experience as the first public editor for the New York Times

Last call daniel okrent sparknotes