Prohibition: The Era of Excess

by Andrew Sinclair

The prohibition of liquor in the United States from 1920 to 1933 created the myth of the flapper and gangster. Andrew Sinclair's account was the first comprehensive study and it shows how this extraordinary experiment was the product of the age-old conflict of country against city, of the God-fearing farmer against the corrupt urban rich and the new immigrants with their imported religions and beer. Prohibition represented the last attempt of rural America to stem the tide of history that was transforming the country from an agricultural to an industrial nations. It stood for tradition and the old American way of life. Its defeat was tragedy as well as a comedy. The lessons of such an attempt at social control are relevant to all societies, old and new. 'This is a definitive biography of an era; a social history, comprehensive, detailed, documented, and well written.' Arthur Weinberg, Chicago Tribune 'Here is a work of real social history, at once scholarly and entertaining, thoughtful, penetrating and analytical.' John A. Garraty, The New Leader

Genres: History

516 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Andrew Sinclair was born in Oxford in 1935 and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. After earning a Ph.D. in American History from Cambridge, he pursued an academic career in the United States and England. His first two novels, written while he was still at Cambridge, were both published in 1959: The Breaking of Bumbo (based on his own experience in the Coldstream Guards, and later adapted for a 1970 film written and directed by Sinclair) and My Friend Judas. Other early novels included The Project (1960), The Hallelujah Bum (1963), and The Raker (1964). The latter, also available from Valancourt, is a clever mix of Gothic fantasy and macabre comedy and was inspired by Sinclair’s relationship with Derek Lindsay, the pseudonymous author of the acclaimed novel The Rack (1958). Sinclair’s best-known novel, Gog (1967), a highly imaginative, picaresque account of the adventures of a seven-foot-tall man who washes ashore on the Scottish coast, naked and suffering from amnesia, has been named one of the top 100 modern fantasy novels. As the first in the ‘Albion Triptych’, it was followed by Magog (1972) and King Ludd (1988).

Sinclair’s varied and prolific career has also included work in film and a large output of nonfiction. As a director, he is best known for Under Milk Wood (1972), adapted from a Dylan Thomas play and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Sinclair’s nonfiction includes works on American history (including The Better Half: The Emancipation of the American Woman, which won the 1967 Somerset Maugham Award), books on Dylan Thomas, Jack London, Che Guevara, and Francis Bacon, and, more recently, works on the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.

Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1972. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Beran Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had been searching for a book on the history of Prohibition for a little while when I happened upon a collector’s edition of this book at a local bookstore. I usually try to avoid older books due to a preference of higher modern academic standards, but decided to give it a shot.

And it was exactly what I was looking for. This book thoroughly describes the factors that led to Prohibition, how it was a lucky victory of old-time country morals on progressive cities, the attempts at enforcement (or lack thereof), and how the cultural tides changed so quickly as to occasion a repeal of a constitutional amendment a mere thirteen years after its ratification. I also enjoyed Sinclair’s dissection of the wet and dry propaganda, and how he showed that neither side was overly virtuous when they were stumping for their side. It shows that the modern idea of “it’s okay to lie for a just cause” is simply a reality of human nature throughout history.

Finally, I think this book shows perfectly how an unpopular reform movement fizzles when a minority forces their morality on the broader public through a stroke of electoral luck. I’ll leave it to you to apply it to modern prohibition movements, but I Peter Lamborn Wilson summed it up perfectly: “Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it.”