This book traces the efforts of American society to legislate protective barriers against on of its most public devastations?drunkenness. It shows the profound impact of the prohibition movement on political history before 1916 and analyzes its ambiguous triumph in the 1920s. In doing so, it reveals the relationship between liquor control and the unique moral history of the American family. Here is social history at its best, wiping away the myth and legends of the past.