This Drinking Nation

Chris Sherman

Harris continues the study of America's drug use that he began in "Drugged Athletes" (1987) with this examination of America's alcohol use from 1607 to the present. He provides a balanced account of the rise of the temperance movement and the legislative battle between the wets and the drys that produced the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, as well as a discussion of the law's subsequent repeal, present-day efforts by the liquor industry to subvert governmental regulations, and ongoing governmental attempts to produce a nation of responsible drinkers. His final chapters focus on drinking habits today, the industry's targeting of specific groups to increase revenues, and teenage drinking and alcoholism. The author includes an annotated bibliography, but he does not cite sources for the many statistics he includes, a feature that would have been helpful to students.