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Review: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent

My rating:
Read from March 01 to 09, 2011

I was both gripped and bored by 'Last Call'. The pure volume of names, dates and events made the book dry and read like a school history book. Fortunately the book was not completely dry and wove a very interesting story connecting all parts of the content during the temperance years.

The book did give me a much better understanding of the lead up to the 18th amendment, the cause of the gangster years and the background to the more 'odd' artifacts such as max % alcohol in beer and drinking age limits. If prohibition had never been attempted, the USA likely would not have ever introduced income taxes!

Even more shocking is that I'm likely related (albeit distantly) to Mary Hunt who started the WCTU that spawned the prohibition movement!