"Eric Burns' book is as lively and engaging as a tailgate party on a Saturday afternoon, yet as sobering as a car wreck and a diagnosis of addiction. Burns connects America's thirst for drink to some of the most important social movements in the country's history: abolition and suffragism, organized labor, Progressivism, and, of course, temperance and Prohibition. Reading this ... Read moreepic of desire and destruction is to see our story magnified through the bottom of a bottle. It's history by the shot glass."-Bill Moyers "Eric Burns has written a marvelous history on the suprising role Alcohol has played in the making of our Republic. Brilliantly researched with elegantly interwoven anecdotes, Spirits of America makes for riveting reading. A truly important book."-Douglas Brinkley, Director of The Eisenhower Center for American Studies and Professor of History at the University of New Orleans "Burns, a self-described "non-academic historian" and host of Fox News Watch, takes readers on a romp with boozers and teetotalers in this high-spirited history of alcohol in America. ...Best of all are his lively portraits of mostly-forgotten historical figures, such as Diocletian Lewis, who, with his mother Delecta, formed the Visitation Bands, which gathered outside barrooms 'communicating their displeasure to the heavens.' ...readers who like informative fun need not be so straight-laced-there are plenty of solid facts here and the Emmy-winning author clearly knows how to spin a good yarn."-Publishers Weekly "By turns humorous and sobering, the book is filled with interesting facts and trivia (apparently bottles of cider were sometimes shared between spectators and trial participants in colonial American courtrooms), and Bums' engaging writing style makes the book a delight to read."-History Magazine "His prose is engaging and relaxed, written in the rhythms of an accomplished raconteur rather than the jargon of the academic. In short, [The Spirits of America] is about as dry as a colonial tavern."-Andrew Stuttaford, National Review "This is that rare vintage of a book: both a fascinating read and a reliable historical reference. Burns delivers a beauty."-G.E. Murray, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "...thoroughly enjoyable... [Burns] is at his best when he is dropping bits of trivia into longer tales."-The Weekly Standard "If Big Shots is the literary equivalent of an umbrella drink, Eric Burns's social history is like a straight whisky...informative and lively. Of course, with characters like Carry Nation floating about, who christened her approach to temperance "hatchetation"-her favorite tool to take to bars being a hatchet-liveliness would be hard to miss. ...Burns's book is a must for anyone with an interest in the long, ambivalent relationship America has had with distilled spirits."-Wine & Spirits Show Less