DRY MANHATTAN: Prohibition in New York City April 01, 2007 - The clear, focused text provides ample evidence of this first-time author's wide research and deep familiarity with the relevant sources. Lerner recognizes Prohibition's central issue: the desire to define morality narrowly and to force that definition upon others. Teeming with immigrants and overflowing with booze, New York City seemed an unlikely battlefield, but William H. Anderson and his Anti-Saloon League came, saw and conquered. Anderson began his fierce and creative anti-alcohol campaign upon arrival in the city in 1914; by 1920, Prohibition was constitutional. The author does a good job of exploring and explaining Anderson's strategies and of identifying the cultural and historical forces that enabled his initial successes, among them the identification of beer-drinking with Germans, America's opponents in World War I....A fine history of a most troubling time. ...Full Review
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