Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

By Daniel Okrent

Summary

A fascinating history of America's most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the US Constitution was amended to restrict one of America's favorite pastimes -- drinking alcoholic beverages. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing. Daniel Okrent's Last Call gives a dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life was like under Prohibition, 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, Daniel Okrent describes how the period of history marked a confluence of diverse forces, as well as stories from nearly all parts of the country. Last Call is meticulously and thrillingly told. It stands as a complete history of Prohibition and confirms Daniel Okrent's rank as a major American writer.

Daniel Okrent was the first public editor of The New York Times, editor-at-large of Time, Inc., and managing director of Life magazine. He worked in book publishing as an editor at Knopf and Viking and was editor-in-chief of general books at Harcourt Brace. He was also a featured commentator on two Ken Burns series, and his books include Last Call, The Guarded Gate, and Great Fortune, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history. He lives in Manhattan and on Cape Cod with his wife, the poet Rebecca Okrent.

Details

• Paperback
• 480 pages
• Size: 5.5" x 1.3" x 8.44"
• New York Times Notable Book
• Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2010