Description: This is a unique retelling of the history of temperance and prohibition. Rather than focusing on white, rural, conservative American bible-thumpers, Mark Lawrence Schrad contends that the temperance movement was a progressive, international, and revolutionary movement of oppressed-peoples fighting the liquor traffic, through which states and rich capitalists combined to get the lower classes addicted to drink for profit. Schrad shows that the temperance movement was in fact a global pro-justice movement that had an impact in nearly every major country in the world, both developing and developed.
Review Quotes: "In this groundbreaking, revisionist work on the history of temperance and prohibition. Schrad makes a compelling case that the temperance movement was not just an American phenomenon but "the most popular, most influential, and longest-lived international social-reform movement in the history of the world" (p. 9) ... This study will go a long way toward reorienting scholars' approach to temperance and prohibition." -- J. M. Richards, CHOICE
"The best book on Prohibition, period. It is a revelation on the causes and nature of the Prohibition movement, and takes a properly international perspective, considering colonies and indigenous peoples as well. You will never look at Prohibition the same way again." -- Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, George Mason University"A wide-ranging, thoroughly revisionist history... Readers won't look at temperance the same way once they take Schrad's inventive and persuasive thesis into account."--Kirkus, Starred Review"[An] eye-opening reevaluation of the global temperance movement... Infused with knowledgeable sketches of world affairs and vivid profiles of activists and political figures including Carrie Nation and Swedish prime minister Hjalmar Branting, this is an authoritative reassessment of a misunderstood chapter in world history."--Publishers Weekly
"Written in a lively style and with arguments presented clearly, if at times rather overemphatically, the book is an engaging and informative read which deserves to be in any serious historical library." -- Annemarie McAllister, Culture and Social History