[.uk] Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (ISBN 067402432X)

Very Dry:
A wealth of apparently well-researched information on the subject of Prohibition. For the most part, I found it to be a very informative book. Yet the information is presented in such a (dare I say) "dry," painfully detailed objective manner, that I often found it excruciating. While much of the "human" side of Prohibition is no doubt covered inthe book, it is in a sort of clinical presentation that I did not find engaging. So, if you're looking for facts, it's a fine book. If you're looking for context and stories of the meaning of Prohibition in the day-to-day lives of people during the 1920s, keep looking; in this regard, I found Edward Behr's "Prohibition" to be a significantly better choice. (I also agree with one of the previous reviewers who commented on the tendency of this book toward wordiness and repetition.)

The Title Says It All:
If you are a serious history buff, you might find "Dry Manhattan" a worthwhile read. But if you like your history to be enriched by anecdote and enlivened by biographical sketches you may find "Dry Manhattan," more "dry" than your taste. Not that these things are entirely lacking, just that they are lacking in development. "Dry Manhattan" is more of a specialized text with a strong point of view, rather than the story of a colorful and exciting era. Those who were looking to be transported back to the time of speakeasies, bootleggers and flappers will find that they haven't been moved far from a college social science classroom. A readable Ph.D. thesis but not up to the standards of our great contemporary writers of popular history.

Interesting, but only from a New Yorker's narrow view of a big topic:
One of my favorite magazine covers of all time is Saul Steinberg's March 1976 cover of the New Yorker Magazine which looks at America from 9th Avenue on Manhattan, and reduces the remaining 2400 miles of the country to something smaller, and less significant, than the view from 9th avenue to the Hudson. That is the essence of this book. Michael Lerner is the quintessential New Yorker, who looks at word events from the epicenter of his universe called New York, and unwittingly sees far bigger events and movements explained in New York terms. While New Yorkers' views on eliminating the effects of hard liquor may have been interesting, they most certainly were not determinative, given the fact that Prohibition was passed without New York's vote to ratify the 18th Amendment, and it would have been repealed regardless of what New Yorker's thought. (Ironically the state that pushed repeal over the edge in 1933 with its approval of the 21st Amendment was Utah, where liquor laws are still less than understandable to the normal person.) This book is not a waste of time, it has a lot of interesting facts, and in a very short few paragraphs in the last chapter pretty much deal with how FDR was a classic fence sitter on the issue of repeal until it looked like he would lose the nomination in 1932 if he didn't take a position on the issue, which is an interesting historical artifact in light of the current issues of import and today's class of politicians to speak out of both sides of their mouths. But most of the detail is really so oriented towards New York that Lerner somehow misses minor details such as how the country was going through many major convulsions other than booze and historic figures such as Eugene Debs Socialists and other radical movements, Clarence Darrow and his populist and atheist brand of Democrat Party ideology in alliance with Woodrow Wilson in favor of Prohibition, don't even get an honorable mention even though their impact on the "dry" vs. "wet" debate was far more important nationally than anything that New York City denizens did. If you have never been able to find a book to practice your speed reading skills on because you were worried that you might miss a critical or important fact, this is the book for you to use. Just about every issue that he covers in this book is repeated at least four or five times, so if you miss it the first few times, you'll be bound to find it in later pages. A fun book, but not really a very thorough examination of the many forces that brought about prohibition, or brought about its demise. Perhaps Lerner will spend some more time on the subject and not limit himself to New York sources to come up with a subsequent edition that is a bit closer to reality.

"Dry Manhattan" Deserves a Drink:
Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, long before I ever pulled the tab on my first beer. I imagine there are few people alive today who were of drinking age at that time, but Michael Lerner's 308-page history, "Dry Manhattan," brings the speakeasy back to life. Lerner details Prohibition as experienced in New York, a city both surprisingly responsible for the passage of the 18th amendment and for its ultimate repeal 14 years later. Behind the public tilt toward outlawing the manufacture, transportation and sale of liquor in the United States was a highly effective campaign by the Anti-Saloon League, whose tactics ushered in the modern era of pressure politics and issues-oriented lobbying. In the turbulent wake of the First World War, even those who were skeptical of the government's intrusive moralizing went along with the dry lobby, which extolled the supposed virtues of sobriety. Before long, however, the underlying anti-ethnic and anti-urban bigotry of the dry movement came into view. It was most evident in the reality of the enforcement of the 18th amendment, where working-class saloons were targeted while "wealthier New Yorkers were given preferential treatment," according to the author. Enforcement action soon overwhelmed federal and city authorities as New Yorkers of all stripes simply defied the law. By 1925, there was a backlog of 15,000 Prohibition-related criminal cases in the New York federal court that the U.S. district attorney estimated would take 10 years to clear. Drinking became more than defiance; it came to define the Jazz Age as a symbol of sophistication and style. By the end of the 1920s, the U.S. had become the world's largest importer of cocktail shakers. Among the most deleterious effects of Prohibition was to engender a thorough disregard for the law. Corruption, bootleggers, black markets and criminal gangs came to the fore in the 1920s and by close of the decade, even law enforcement leaders had concluded the experiment was a dismal failure. The death knell for Prohibition came from the Depression, for even as bread lines grew, the federal government continued to expend its shrinking resources on ineffective enforcements efforts. Those resources were further impaired by the lost tax revenue on the legal sale of alcohol. The stage was set for repeal, but it would take another powerful political movement to counter the dry lobby, even though it had been by then discredited by its own corruption, failure and prejudice. The Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), established in 1929, became the locomotive that pulled anti-Prohibition politicians into office in 1932. It had long been assumed that women, under the umbrella of temperance movements and personified by activists such as Carrie Nation, would remain loyal to the drys. But the women of New York had seen enough by the early Thirties. The WONPR successfully organized women all across the U.S., from all walks of life, and claimed the moral high ground from the drys. "WONPR saw the need to protect American families and children from the most dangerous consequences of the failed Prohibition experiment, namely excessive drinking, violence, organized crime, declining respect for the law, and hypocrisy," writes Lerner. In the very well researched and well documented "Dry Manhattan," Michael Lerner takes us through the nuances of a modern political story whose sensible outcome we can celebrate 75 years later with a classic cocktail. I'll take mine straight up.

Enjoyable, informative and comprehensive:
I had been looking for a book that told the story of Prohibition and Repeal. At first, I was concerned that the focus on the experience in NYC would not give me a good feel for how the Great Experiment played out nationally but that very focus made the politic clashes, moral arguments, failures of enforcement and gradual consensus about the need to repeal prohibition become more real by showing how the experience in NYC was central to attitudes that came to drive the national debate (even the most ardent Prohibitionists in the south and mid-west realized that they had to make Prohibition work in NYC if it was to be preserved nationally). The book is clearly an adapted version of a doctoral thesis though the writing is non-technical and the story compelling, with the range of reactions to Prohibition fully captured by Mr. Lerner's focus on some very interesting people, organizations and social groups. The book may be slightly more interesting for the history buff (full disclosure, that's me) than the general reader but even a general reader will come away with an enjoyable and well-written account of a fascinating period in American history.