The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State — How Prohibition Built the Penal State
Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.
Author: Lisa McGirr
This episode explores The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State by Lisa McGirr as a systems-level analysis of how Prohibition influenced federal policing, selective enforcement, prison growth, political realignment, and the later architecture of narcotics control.
By focusing on incentive architecture rather than personalities or events, the episode shows why these systems persist — and how they connect to larger economic, political, and cultural structures.
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The skinny
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