Scott C. Martin wrote: > On another front, I'm planning a graduate seminar on alcohol >and drug policy in US history for the Policy History program at >Bowling Green, where I teach. I'd be grateful for any suggestions for >readings or syllabi of similar courses. Thanks in advance. I'm just now in the process of reviewing Kenneth J. Meier's new book, _The Politics of Sin: Drugs, Alcohol, and Public Policy_ (Armonk, NY & London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1994) for SHAR. It offers reasonably good chapters on the history of U.S. drug policy (Ch. 2) and alcohol policy (Ch. 5) in a comparative framework. Meier's work relies entirely on secondary sources--and so his bibliograpies for these chapters are tickets to much of the drug/alcohol policy literature. Drug policy books have more general appeal in the popular marketplace, and there are, it seems, many more of them. Alcohol policy studies are usually directed toward a professional collegium--my "top ten" picks on the alcohol side would probably include: _Alcohol, Science and Society_ (1945), McCarthy's _Alcohol & Social Responsibility_ (1949); Tom Plaut's _Alcohol Problems: A Report to the Nation by the Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism_ (1967); Bruun et al., _Alcohol Control Policies in Public Health Perspective_ (1975--not confined to U.S. policy, but important anyhow); Beauchamp, _Beyond Alcoholism: Alcohol and Public Policy_ (1980); Moore & Gerstein, _Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition_ (1981); Room, "Alcohol Control and Public Health" (in Ann. Rev. Publ. Hlth 5:293-317, 1984); the two Institute of Medicine reports on alcoholism treatment (1987, 1990); Edwards et al. _Alcohol Policy and the Public Good_ (1994). Then again, different picks might come to mind depending on how you want to orient your seminar. We can confer by e-mail if you like. Yours, Ron