Synopsis
It began with the best of intentions. Worried about the effects of alcohol on American families, mothers and civic leaders started a movement to outlaw drinking in public places.
Over time, their protests, petitions, and activism paid off―when a Constitutional Amendment banning the sale and consumption of alcohol was ratified, it was hailed as the end of public drunkenness, alcoholism, and a host of other social ills related to booze. Instead, it began a decade of lawlessness, when children smuggled (and drank) illegal alcohol, the most upright citizens casually broke the law, and a host of notorious gangsters entered the public eye.
Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition is fast-paced non-fiction perfect for anyone who's interested in American history, paricularly the 1920s, gangsters, bootleggers, the history of alcohol in the US, the Eighteenth Amendment and the Constitution, and American politics.