McGirr, Lisa

"This outstanding history also reveals a new genome for the activist American state, one that shows the DNA of the right as well as the left. It was Herbert Hoover who built the extensive penal apparatus used by the federal government to combat the crime spawned by Prohibition. The subsequent federal wars on crime, on drugs, and on terror all display the inheritances of the war on alcohol. McGirr shows the powerful American state to be a bipartisan creation, a legacy not only of the New Deal and the Great Society but also of Prohibition and its progeny."--From the publisher.

Explores the notion that American suburban conservatives, from the 1960s to the present, actually have more power than was previously thought and that these conservatives are made up of successful entrepreneurial types with modern lifestyles and bright futures.