Readers won’t look at temperance the same way once they take Schrad’s inventive and persuasive thesis into account.
A wide-ranging, thoroughly revisionist history of the effort to ban alcohol from the public sphere across the globe.
“Both in the United States and around the world,” writes Villanova political science professor Schrad, “the true target of prohibitionism—the liquor traffic—was overwhelmingly the purview of powerful, white, self-identified Christians.” These purveyors of liquor found opponents in men and women who viewed the matter differently: Enslaving people to the addiction of alcohol helped the ruling class maintain control, subjugated colonial and marginalized peoples, and otherwise served the interests of both the wealthy minority and the state. Proclaimed Carrie Nation, tellingly, as she smashed the mirrors and glassware in saloon after saloon, “You wouldn’t give me the vote, so I had to use a rock!” Yet, as Schrad observes, Nation wasn’t above a glass of beer, even as a certain prohibitionist named V.I. Lenin, who denounced the imperial monopoly on liquor as the prop of a feeble and failing state, liked to quaff a brew himself from time to time. The author clearly and engagingly shows how the enemy wasn’t alcohol as such, but instead “the exploitative selling of addictive substances.” Activists, he writes, argued that propping up “moneyed elites upon the misery and addiction of society was no longer appropriate.” In this comprehensive, wholly convincing study, Schrad examines a number of famous prohibitionists, including Tolstoy, Gandhi, William Jennings Bryan, and even Theodore Roosevelt, the last of whom tempered his temperance leanings with the view that prohibition should be a local rather than federal affair. The author also links the prohibition movement to abolitionism, civil rights activism, anti-colonialism, and feminism, and he attributes the view of that movement as a collection of party poopers to our changing views of liberty, which have devolved to a kind of me-first, you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do ethic as opposed to the notion of entire peoples living without chains.
Readers won’t look at temperance the same way once they take Schrad’s inventive and persuasive thesis into account.Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-084157-7
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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