Books like The war on alcohol by Lisa McGirr

Mark Forsyth traces human history’s fascination with alcohol, from ancient rituals to Prohibition, showcasing how drinking shapes cultures, economies, and societies.

Douglas Brinkley’s biography uncovers Theodore Roosevelt’s revolutionary conservation legacy, detailing how he protected 230 million acres of wild America and founded institutions like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Born 1880. Shot dead 1911. Buried 1997. In life Elmer McCurdy was a plumber-cum-miner who jumped a train and drifted west across America on the back of an infectious, turn-of-the-century optimism. He was a drunk too and, soon enough, a failed outlaw. In 1911, after a short spree of failed robberies, he held up the wrong train and rode away with a haul that was described by papers as "one of the smallest in the history of train robbery." It wasn't long before the sheriff and his posse caught up with him and shot him dead. At this point McCurdy, like us all, should have slipped into the earth and quietly from memory. But, in death, he accidentally found fame. From the Joseph Johnson Funeral Home, where the owner propped up McCurdy's preserved corpse and charged a nickel-a-look, to the sideshows of the Great Patterson Carnival where he was exhibited as a felled outlaw, McCurdy became big business. In 1928 he was the star attraction in a carnival that accompanied an extraordinary transcontinental running race from Los Angeles to New York. In the 30s and 40s, he was reinvented as a prop for a series of Hollywood exploitation films like Dwain (Reefer Madness) Esper's film Narcotic, before winding up painted day-glow orange and hanging by his neck in the Laff in the Dark ghost tunnel in Long Beach, California. It was here, in 1976, during the filming of an episode of The six Million Dollar Man, that Elmer was rescued from his strange journey, a forgotten corpse as light as tinderwood. In his mouth the coroner discovered a green, corroded 1924 penny and a ticket stub that read "Louis Sonney's Museum of Crime". Mark Svenvold tells the bizarre story of this quixotic American anti-hero and the journey through the 20th century of his embalmed remains. A travel book, an exposition of the exotic corners of the entertainment industry, a meditation on death and its meanings and one of the most daring biographies of recent times, Elmer McCurdy brilliantly reveals America's deepest obsessions and how they have changed. - Jacket flap.

"Susan Brownmiller now brings the Women's Liberation Movement and its passionate history vividly to life. Here is the colorful cast of characters on whose shoulders we stand - the feminist icons Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Germaine Greer, and Gloria Steinem, and the lesser known women whose contributions to change were equally profound. And here are the landmark events of the era: the consciousness-raising groups that sprung up in people's living rooms, the mimeographed position papers that first articulated the new thinking, the abortion and rape speak-outs, the daring sit-ins, the underground newspaper collectives, and the inventive lawsuits that all played a role in the most wide-reaching revolution of the twentieth century. Here as well are Brownmiller's reflections on the feminist utopian vision and her dramatic accounts, rendered with honesty and humor, of the movement's painful internal schisms as it struggled to give voice to the aspirations of all women. Finally, Brownmiller addresses that most relevant question: What is the legacy of feminism today?"--BOOK JACKET.

Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who've Lived It is a collective portrait of our times, woven from the voices of seventy very different people, the youngest of whom is seventy and the oldest ninety-nine. Together they give us an extraordinary panorama of American life and work throughout this century and underscore the ways in which the times have changed. Coming of Age is also, in many ways, a sequel to Terkel's acclaimed Working (1974), for it traces the extraordinary ways our working lives have changed in the past few decades - often beyond recognition. We meet politicians and preachers, advertising men and hucksters. Here is the partner in a large law firm, suing the colleagues who have forced him out; here, too, is the carpenter, accepting as inevitable the replacement of his skilled tasks by machine. But this is not a group of disgruntled Luddites; most accept - indeed welcome - the new technologies, yet they all deplore the degree to which human contact has declined and how traditional hopes and aspirations have been superseded by the often ruthless demands of the modern corporation.

In 1905 Idaho, former Governor Frank Steunenberg is murdered in Caldwell, sparking an investigation that uncovers a chain of political and labor conflict, ultimately leading to the trial of union leader Big Bill Haywood.

The 1930s were perhaps the seminal decade in twentieth-century history, a dark time of global depression that displaced millions, paralyzed the liberal democracies, gave rise to totalitarian regimes, and, ultimately, led to the Second World War. In this sweeping history, Piers Brendon brings the tragic, dismal days of the 1930s to life. From Stalinist pogroms to New Deal programs, Brendon re-creates the full scope of a slow international descent towards war. Offering perfect sketches of the players, riveting descriptions of major events and crises, and telling details from everyday life, he offers both a grand, rousing narrative and an intimate portrait of an era that make sense out of the fascinating, complicated, and profoundly influential years of the 1930s.

Truevine follows the true story of George and Willie Muse, two Black sharecropper sons from rural Virginia who were taken to circus stardom in the late 1800s, only to endure exploitation and racial caricature while their mother campaigned tirelessly to bring them home.