| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 256 words from this article are provided below; about 391 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement. By Joe L. Coker. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. x, 329 pp. $50.00, ISBN 978-0-8131-2471-1.)
According to its dust jacket, this book is "the first comprehensive survey of temperance in the South." Not exactly. As Joe L. Coker makes clear in his introduction, his focus is on Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, states that "reflect the southern context on a number of levels and capture much of the diversity of the South in terms of politics, geography, economic development, religion, wartime and Reconstruction experience, and social makeup" (p. 7). Some readers, myself included, might initially question how an author can posit conclusions for a region based on the examples of three states. Yet Coker's monograph is a nuanced, gracefully written, and utterly persuasive interpretation of how evangelical Christians successfully "adapt[ed] the prohibition message to the idiosyncrasies of southern culture" (p. 237).	1
Coker's opening chapter provides a splendid overview of the temperance movement in the antebellum South. Despite the best efforts of dry leaders, no southern state followed the example of the thirteen northern states between 1851 and 1855 that enacted "Maine laws" establishing statewide prohibition. Temperance advocates in Dixie failed, Coker argues, because they "lacked not only the will to use the power of the state but also the means of raising the liquor issue to a crisis level, so that the white male population would have no choice but to address it" (p. 24).	. . .

There are about 391 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.