Last Call
The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
Read by: Daniel Okrent
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America’s obsession with its own history has resulted in innumerable bestsellers. Like baseball and the Civil War, Prohibition is one of the grand American topics, and now it is the subject of Daniel Okrent’s masterful, prize-worthy tour de force.
Last Call is a narrative history of one of the most puzzling and most exciting eras in American history, the years 1920 to 1933, when the Constitution was amended to restrict human social behavior. Beginning with the liquor-soaked country that the U.S. was in the nineteenth century, Last Call explains three things: How Prohibition happened, what life under Prohibition was like, and what it did to the country. Last Call, peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety (Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and Sam Bronfman, Pierre du Pont and H.L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and Clarence Darrow) and jammed with stories from nearly all parts of the country, reveals this strange chapter in our history as never before.
Last Call is a narrative history of one of the most puzzling and most exciting eras in American history, the years 1920 to 1933, when the Constitution was amended to restrict human social behavior. Beginning with the liquor-soaked country that the U.S. was in the nineteenth century, Last Call explains three things: How Prohibition happened, what life under Prohibition was like, and what it did to the country. Last Call, peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety (Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and Sam Bronfman, Pierre du Pont and H.L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and Clarence Darrow) and jammed with stories from nearly all parts of the country, reveals this strange chapter in our history as never before.
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- Simon & Schuster Audio |
- ISBN 9780743599221 |
- May 2010
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Prologue
January 16, 1920
THE STREETS OFSan Francisco were jammed. A frenzy of cars, trucks, wagons, and every other imaginable form of conveyance crisscrossed the town and battled its steepest hills. Porches, staircase landings, and sidewalks were piled high with boxes and crates delivered on the last possible day before transporting their contents would become illegal. The next morning, the Chronicle reported that people whose beer, liquor, and wine had not arrived by midnight were left to stand in their doorways “with haggard faces and glittering eyes.” Just two weeks earlier, on the last New... see more
January 16, 1920
THE STREETS OFSan Francisco were jammed. A frenzy of cars, trucks, wagons, and every other imaginable form of conveyance crisscrossed the town and battled its steepest hills. Porches, staircase landings, and sidewalks were piled high with boxes and crates delivered on the last possible day before transporting their contents would become illegal. The next morning, the Chronicle reported that people whose beer, liquor, and wine had not arrived by midnight were left to stand in their doorways “with haggard faces and glittering eyes.” Just two weeks earlier, on the last New... see more
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Book Reviews
Video
A Sneak Peek at PROHIBITION, the upcoming PBS film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
PROHIBITION, the upcoming PBS film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the rise and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment and features Daniel Okrent, author of LAST CALL.
A Sneak Peek at PROHIBITION, the upcoming PBS film from Ken Burns...
Author Dan Okrent discusses his new book, Last Call
Learn About When Alcohol was Illegal in the USA in LAST CALL
