Smashing the Liquor Machine

Ken Burns’ account of prohibition tells a popular story of booze in America. The historical record is far more sobering.

The temperance movement wasn’t an example of American exceptionalism; it was a globe-spanning network of activists and politicians against economic exploitation.

Nobody was listening, so she brought some rocks.

We often think of the temperance movement as driven by white evangelicals set out to discipline Black Americans and immigrants. That history is wrong.