The Roaring Twenties

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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The Roaring Twenties are frequently considered one of the more exciting periods of American history – it's right there in the name after all. The cultural, economic and political changes that characterize this decade are the fodder for all sorts of reflection and analysis. This volume in the series attempts to be an introduction and a survey to this. And it is – just an uninspired and very surface-level one.

Something that most people forget – or misunderstand – is that Prohibition came from Progressive roots – sadly, this volume repeatedly attributes it to others. I'm not sure why – the moral/political battles of yesteryear don't have to look like those of today.

Finally! There's a Bibliography! I've lamented the lack of one of these in every installment in this series. Now we finally get one – it's not long, but it's robust enough to equip someone to start looking into the topic in more depth on their own. Bravo!

This isn't the series at its best – I'm not sure what it was I didn't like. It was . . . just dull? Lifeless is a better description. It covered the basics, but didn't seem to want to do anything else – this series, when at it's best seems like it's a compression of something longer and more detailed. But This one almost seemed like it was stretching to fill the pages. Still, that Bibliography is worth at least a half start.