Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition [Paperback]

Filled with period art and photographs, anecdotes, and portraits of unique characters from the era, this fascinating book by an award-winning author looks at the rise and fall of the disastrous social experiment known as Prohibition.

It began with the best of intentions. Worried about the effects of alcohol on American families, mothers and civic leaders started a movement to outlaw drinking in public places.

Over time, their protests, petitions, and activism paid offwhen a Constitutional Amendment banning the sale and consumption of alcohol was ratified, it was hailed as the end of public drunkenness, alcoholism, and a host of other social ills related to booze. Instead, it began a decade of lawlessness, when children smuggled (and drank) illegal alcohol, the most upright citizens casually broke the law, and a host of notorious gangsters entered the public eye.

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibitionis fast-paced non-fiction perfect for anyone who's interested in American history, paricularly the 1920s, gangsters, bootleggers, the history of alcohol in the US, the Eighteenth Amendment and the Constitution, and American politics.

Read more thrilling nonfiction by Karen Blumenthal:
Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History(A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist)
Tommy: The Gun That Changed America
Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

Praise forBootleg:

AKirkusBest Teen Book of the Year
ASchool Library Journal's Best Nonfiction Book
A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist

A fast-paced, gripping narrative . . . An informative, insightful account of a fascinating period of American history. Kirkus Reviews,starred review

Gangsters, guns, and political battlesthis book has them alland presents them in compell‡