Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition

For far too long the popular mindset about Prohibition has been dominated by the more shallow attempts to explain it such as Hofstadter's comment that it infected the nation with an aversion "to the pleasures and amenities of city life, and to the well-to-do classes and cultivated men." It was in fact a reform movement over a hundred years in the making. And Norman Clark in this book goes beyond in depth and explains all the social movements throughout all the different phases of Prohibition, from Temperance, to legislation, to repeal. He goes into detail about the development of the distilation process and how that led to an increase in public drunkeness. And he even ventures into parallel Prohibition movements in some of the European countries as well. In the end, the Prohibition movement has long been misunderstood and Norman H. Clark in this work does an excellent job of research and explanation. It is a scholarly work, so not necessarily a fun and quick read. But a very worthwhile one, nonetheless. I felt rewarded from reading it.

This book is a survey of the social trends and political movement that over a hundred years sought to bring about prohibition culminating in the Volstead Act and also describes the social changes that lead to its relatively speedy demise. It is also a narrative of over a hundred years of American society. Essentially, the book shows how prohibition was a progressive social movement similar to the movement for the abolition of slavery and was at the forefront of trendy thinking throughout the 19th century which then fell out of favour with the new America of the 20th century, and especially among the 1920s Great Gatsby set. Prohibition was once cool and then it wasn't. Despite being an analytical socio-historical survey, it creates sadness at the tale of the growth and then the demise of an older, idealistic and more innocent socially responsible American society to be replaced by a more individualistic media driven consumer society, essentially the America of today. This book puts prohibition in its correct context without which it would not be possible to accurately assess it. The book makes it clear that prohibition is much misunderstood and misaligned in our time by those who are unable to see from the perspective of those times. Reading this book is a good way of rectifying this. While being an analytical social-historical report, it is also highly readable and likely to be accessible to most readers. The book remains as important today as when published due to its sympathetic though critical treatment of the prohibition movement and due to the biases of other writings on the subject.

This book, first published in 1976, is not exactly history--there are no footnotes--and is heavy on sociology, but is quite interesting and balanced. The author has good things to say for Prohibition, and pooh-poohs the notion that Prohibition increased drinking--it clearly did not--or that crime increased because of it. Obviously, however, Prohibition decreased resopect for law. The author points out the same thing can be said for drug laws--and there is merit in what he says. Since I so strongly believe in illegalization of harmful drugs I presume that if I had been an adult in 1915 I might have been for Prohibition!

Clark does an incredibly competent job of explaining the feelings of both urban and rural Americans over the last three centuries. He exposes the political depth that was the Prohibition movement. Being a "wet" or a "dry" reminded me of the current struggle between "pro-choice" and "pro-life" factions. The book also does well on introducing the major personalities of the movement. A great first read for anyone interested in Prohibition.