Lecture, Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition with Daniel Okrent

Like baseball and the Civil War, Prohibition is one of the grand American topics. Vivid characters of astonishing variety such as Susan B. Anthony, William Jennings Bryan, Pierre du Pont, H.L. Mencken, and Clarence Darrow will make an appearance in Mr. Okrent’s lecture about one of the most puzzling and exciting eras in American history, when the Constitution was amended to restrict human social behavior.

Daniel Okrent has been an editor for the New York Times, Life, Time Inc., Knopf, Viking, Harcourt Brace, and New England Monthly. His books include Public Editor Number One: The Collected Columns (with Reflections, Reconsiderations, and Even a Few Retractions) of the First Ombudsman of the New York Times and Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in History. Okrent is founder of Rotisserie League Baseball and was a featured commentator on Ken Burns’s PBS series, Baseball.

To Reserve: Reservations are required but will not be accepted until May 14, 2010. There is a $10 fee per member, $15 per nonmember. Please call the Athenæum’s event reservation line, 617-720-7600.

Books will be available for sale courtesy of our friends at The Globe Corner Bookstore.

Dan Okrent on NPR's Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126613316

Read a review at: drinkboston.com

The Boston Globe, April 3, 2010: Dry Times: Remembering the dark days when the nation lost it's mind and turned off the spigots