I'm an amateur, but enthusiastic reader on the topic, and would be interested
in your opinions about Revenuers & Moonshiners:  Enforcing Federal Liquor Law
in the Mountain South, 1865-1900, by Wilbur R. Miller.  Chapel Hill:  Univ. of
North Carolina Press, 1991.
Joan McCord

K. Austin Kerr wrote:

> I hesitate to join in this discussion, because I am the author of a book
> (now out of print) on the Anti Saloon League.  However, I would urge
> caution about praising Andrew Sinclair's work, as it is based on very
> little manuscript source material and takes a viewpoint that is quite
> insensitive to the progressivism that American prohibition represented.  I
> have not read Behr's book, but the content of the A&E program based on his
> book, and what he said on camera, makes me not to want to read it.  (I
> spent several days consulting with the producer and director of that
> program; the on camera interview with me found no place in the final
> version, perhaps because what I said did not fit the out-of-date
> stereotypes Behr's book represented.  I did find the producer and director,
> however, very well informed personally about scholarship on American
> prohibition.)
>
> In my limited experience, I have never met a British scholar who seemed to
> understand that American prohibition fits in with a long tradition of
> seeking to control business corporations, in this case so as to deal with a
> very real human and social problem of alcohol misuse and abuse.  Although
> prohibition did not last as a public policy (neither did much of
> progressive era effort to control the power of business corporations), the
> alcohol abuse problems remain with us.  I suspect that today alcohol is the
> single most widely abused drug in the United States (perhaps surpassed by
> nicotine).  Certainly alcohol and nicotine are the most widely abused drugs
> on my campus.  Although I do not agree with the prohibitionists, I can
> understand why some persons might wish more closely to regulate, if not ban
> outright, the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages,
> having witnessed their potentially devastating effects in members of my own
> family.
>
> Part of the reason I developed the web site
> http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/prohibition/default.htm is to
> present information, and a viewpoint, that runs contrary to the persistent
> popular stereotypes represented by Behr's book.  It is a very popular site,
> with thousands of visitors every month.
>
> K. Austin Kerr
> http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/people/kerr.htm
> Professor of History at Ohio State University
> Columbus, OH 43210
> [log in to unmask]
> Voice: 614-292-2613
> Fax:   614-292-2282