A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of America’s most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the U.S. Constitution was amended to restrict one of America’s favorite pastimes: drinking alcoholic beverages.
From its start, America has been awash in drink. The sailing vessel that brought John Winthrop to the shores of the New World in 1630 carried more beer than water. By the 1820s, liquor flowed so plentifully it was cheaper than tea. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing. Yet we did, and Last Call is Daniel Okrent’s dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever.
Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax.
Through it all, Americans kept drinking, going to remarkably creative lengths to smuggle, sell, conceal, and convivially (and sometimes fatally) imbibe their favorite intoxicants. Last Call is peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety: Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and bootlegger Sam Bronfman, Pierre S. du Pont and H. L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and the incredible—if long-forgotten—federal official Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who throughout the twenties was the most powerful woman in the country. (Perhaps most surprising of all is Okrent’s account of Joseph P. Kennedy’s legendary, and long-misunderstood, role in the liquor business.)
It’s a book rich with stories from nearly all parts of the country. Okrent’s narrative runs through smoky Manhattan speakeasies, where relations between the sexes were changed forever; California vineyards busily producing “sacramental” wine; New England fishing communities that gave up fishing for the more lucrative rum-running business; and in Washington, the halls of Congress itself, where politicians who had voted for Prohibition drank openly and without apology.
Last Call is capacious, meticulous, and thrillingly told. It stands as the most complete history of Prohibition ever written and confirms Daniel Okrent’s rank as a major American writer.
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"Okrent brings Prohibition to life in "Last Call" and makes it fascinating. The subtitle "the Rise and Fall of Prohibition" aptly describes this well-written, well-researched book. Most of the book covers the rise and duration of Prohibition with the fall making up a smaller but no less important portion of the book. I had not really known much about how Prohibition came to be before reading "Last Call". The successful passage of Constitutional Ammendments for women's suffrage, income tax and Prohibition were completely intertwined. Supporters of Prohibition, "drys", realized that they needed the support of women to successfully push Prohibition through Congress and ratification and women realized they needed the support of "drys" to push through suffrage. An enormous amount of money flowed to the U.S. government from liquor related taxes and an income tax was needed to replace it. For a time the "drys" had a stunning amount of influence over Congress, the President and the American public. Okrent supplies an amazing amount of detail, writing with wit and intelligence. The book is peppered with anecdotal stories such as how during Prohibition ships would anchor just outside U.S. waters and then small boats would smuggle liquor to shore. One enterprising group of smugglers packed bottles of liquor in bags of salt so that if intercepted they could dump the bottles overboard, wait until the coast was clear, then pick up the bags that bobbed to the surface after the salt dissolved. The repeal of Prohibition came about through the efforts of America's ultra rich with the aim of getting rid of the despised income tax. Also, in the depths of the Depression the jobs that a restored alcohol industry would provide was greatly needed. Okrent delves into the large, complex social and political ramifications and the background surrounding Prohibtion with amazing thoroughness and clarity. By the time I finished the book I felt like I'd had a whole semester course on Prohibition with a truly interesting instructor. I did have to take a break in the middle and go read Tess Gerritsen's new mystery but then jumped right back into this singular time period in American history. PBS is supposed to air a Ken Burns film this fall on Prohibition which was made with the help of Okrent."
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Alexis (5 out of 5 stars)