Choice Review

This is a splendid volume. It provides an exhaustive account of America's intense ambivalence about alcohol, and how that ambivalence has been manifest in the law. Much of the book chronicles the staying power and gradual successes of the temperance movement throughout the 19th century, and the abject failure of its greatest triumph--Prohibition, which was repealed. This leads Mendelson into interesting excursions: wine as medicine and sacrament and the legal basis for both; and most importantly to the effects of the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed prohibition and granted states expansive regulatory powers. Post-WW II policies generally accepted alcohol, and the temperance and prohibition movement refocused on drugs. The latter part of the book reflects this shift. It focuses on the practical legal matters pertaining to regulation: interstate shipment and taxation issues; health, safety, and warning issues; truth in labeling--appellations of origin; and efforts to protect brand names. Although some of these matters are occasionally transformed into big battles, for the most part the battles are common to many areas of economic regulation. This wonderful book should be agreeable to a great many palates. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students and above. M. M. Feeley University of California, Berkeley