Prohibition: An economic analysis

Prohibition brought together several disparate groups:  business owners (seeing it as a means of increasing productivity); religious and conservative groups opposed to drinking (e.g. Saloon League); progressive political activists (seeing alcohol as wasting people’s lives physically and mentally).  The topic should cover why prohibition was passed and its general results on the economy as well as whether it worked or not. Don’t get too bogged down with the moral issues and focus on economic.

John Burnham “New Perspectives on the Prohibition ‘Experiment’ of the 1920s” Journal of Social History 2 (1968): 51-68;

James Timberlake in Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963)

Miron, Jeffrey. “Alcohol Prohibition”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. September 25, 2001. URL

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/miron.prohibition.alcohol  Good overview and bibliography.  Excessive emphasis on quantitative measurement of effectiveness of prohibition using medical data.

Miron, Jeffrey and Jeffrey Zweibel.  1995 “The Economic Case Against Drug Prohibition.”  The Journal of Economic Perspectives.  Autumn.  175-192.

PBS  Prohibition: A film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/ excellent site with lots of video and source info.