Last Call : : the Rise and Fall of Prohibition

AADL has no copies of this item

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
CHOICE Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Last Call submitted by emjane on July 14, 2012, 8:37pm Okrent is a fine historian and decent writer, and Last Call is a thorough exploration of the Prohibition period. Beginning with the initial campaign for prohibition, Okrent follows with the ratification of the 18th Amendment, the period of prohibition, and ends with the amendment’s repeal.

Last Call is filled with details about the people and events surrounding prohibition. And though I found many of these details to be, well, kind of boring, the ones Okrent hid in footnotes were delightful. It seems as though every so often he came across a “fun fact” in the course of his research that had little to do with prohibition; however, the stories were just too good not to share, so he added them in a footnote. I loved that.

But, the thing is, I expected Last Call to be a little more exciting—the “sexier” part of prohibition, if you will. I wanted less politics and more parties, less Al Smith and more Al Capone. Still and all, Last Call was a decent read. If you’re just reading it for fun, though, I recommend skimming (or skipping) the first section.