Alcoholism in America from Reconstruction to Prohibition. By Sarah W. Tracy

Abstract

Alcoholism in America from Reconstruction to Prohibition. By Sarah W. Tracy. Johns Hopkins University Press, August 2005, £32.00. Hardcover: 384 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0801881190 This is an excellent book, which explores the way in which alcoholism was construed during the closing years of the 19th century, and the ensuing time up to 1920 and Prohibition in the USA. The focus is entirely on the American experience but there is relevance for all of us. The author explores the social significance of alcohol problems in a discourse of ideas that considers alcohol problems as a disease; a disability; a vice, and examines this in the context of ethnicity, gender, class, social order and the socio-economic pressures of the time. On 29 November 1870, 16 men convened in the New York City Young Men's Christian Association to change the …