The Politics of Prohibition

Lisa M. F. Andersen is Assistant Professor of History and Liberal Arts at the Juilliard School, New York.

• Part I. Building a Constituency: 1. Temperance, prohibition, and a party; 2. Disorderly conduct in the emancipation era; 3. Women's peculiar partisanship; Part II. The Minor Party Problem: 4. 'Collateral consequences' of the 1884 election; 5. Writing prohibition into the soil; 6. Strenuous bodies; Part III. Partisanship, Policy, and Protest Votes: 7. Opposing the prohibition amendment; Epilogue.

'Lisa M. F. Andersen's thoughtfully conceived and gracefully executed study adds to a growing body of historical analysis that explains how Americans' political choices have become ever more restricted, while deliberation over policy has become less common and less inclusive. In addition, she shows why dedicated prohibitionists rejected the Eighteenth Amendment and elucidates the complex relationship between women activists and the first national party to declare for woman suffrage. The Politics of Prohibition draws cogent lessons for Americans today from a skilful anatomy of political failure.' Jack Blocker, Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario, and Past President of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era