Prohibition was aggressively promoted-and spectacularly unsuccessful-in New York City. In the first major work on the subject in 25 years, and the only full history of Prohibition in the era's most vibrant city, Lerner describes a battle between competing visions of the U.S. that encompassed much more than the freedom to drink.
In his evocative history, Lerner reveals Prohibition to be the defining issue of the era, the first major "culture war" of the 20th century, and a harbinger of the social and moral debates that divide America even today.