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Why The Prohibition Is The Era Of The United States

Decent Essays

On January 17, 1920, the 18th Amendment to the constitution of the United States of America took effect. The 18th Amendment had been ratified a year earlier, banning “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors”(Okrent, 1) within the United States and its territories. This new decade is called the Prohibition. The prohibition is the era of bizarre and engaging images of speakeasies, intoxicated flappers dancing the Charleston, bootleggers, and mobsters protecting illegal trades. Daniel Okrent seeks to explain the build up to the era, passage of the 18th Amendment, the public 's activities in the age of Prohibition, the ultimate repeal of the law by the 21st Amendment, and the final outcomes. Daniel Okrent is an award winning journalist, and the first public editor of The New York Times and managing editor of Life magazine. Throughout the book Okrent uses many sources of information. Okrent’s sources include newspapers, magazines, oral histories, websites, and interviews conducted by Okrent. It was clear Okrent had done a lot of research about the era before beginning to write this book. Many sources were of use and he even uses primary sources to back up his information. While there are many sources of use by Okrent, much of the information is foggy because of the poor layout and structure of this book. The book is broken up into four parts. Part I titled “The Struggle”, Part II titled “The Flood”, Part III “The War Of the Wet and The Dry”, and Part IV

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