Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment

“Well researched and lucidly written, Hamm’s study is also notable for deftly situating temperance and prohibition in relation to other progressive era reforms.” — CHOICE

“Breadth of conception and depth of analysis make Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment a valuable addition to the literature.” — Journal of American History

“In this well-researched and crisply written volume, Richard F. Hamm provides a valuable corrective to many conventional but faulty assumptions about the Prohibition movement, its ideology, and its legal strategies in the four decades preceding passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. . . . Hamm’s study provides a detailed and sophisticated new look at the men and women involved in shaping the Eighteenth Amendment.” — Journal of Southern History

“Hamm has succeeded admirably in presenting the constitutional and legal history of prohibition and in demonstrating the way that the prohibition movement and the polity interacted to alter both. . . . His book should be of interest to constitutional and legal scholars, those interested in the emergence of the twentieth-century state, and specialists in the politics of the era.” — American Historical Review

“In coping with one of the most controversial reform efforts of the progressive era, Richard Hamm in this thoughtful and provocative book places the prohibition crusade within the nation’s legal and political structure.” — American Journal of Legal History

“A rich study of how one group of social reformers used the law.” — Journal of Church and State

“An incisive and thoughtful study that relates the movement for national prohibition during the Progressive Era to the general reform spirit of the time. [Hamm’s] skill in drawing out the legal implications of the dry crusade is impressive, and his work represents an important contribution to the historical literature about the campaign to control alcohol.” — Lewis L. Gould, University of Texas at Austin

“Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment tells an interesting story and does so with flair. Hamm deftly examines one of the nation’s most persistent social policy challenges — liquor regulation — and the links between law and social reform. He makes Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment a significant contribution to the cultural and statutory history of American law.” — Michael Grossberg, Case Western Reserve University