Hello, this is Rusty Reno on the Editor's Desk podcast here at First Things in First Things World Headquarters in New York City.

And I'm delighted to have with me,

remotely sadly, but to have with me,

Daryl Paul, professor of political science

at Williams College and author of Prohibition Revisited,

a review in the February 2020 issue, a review of Smashing a Liquor Machine, a Global History of Prohibition.

Welcome, Daryl.

Thanks for having me on the podcast, Rusty.

So, you know, in the beginning of the review, you observe, and I was kind of interesting, the Howard Zinn's

famous book, notorious book, I suppose, in the subject of the people's history of the United States,

he never mentions prohibition. That is a kind of shocking omission given, arguably, if you're going to say,

the sort of 10 most significant political cultural events in American history, at least since the

founding, wouldn't you range prohibition in that top 10 list?

I think not only is prohibition tremendously important, right, as a historical moment in America,

but it also plays exactly into the things that Zinn claims to be really interested.

And he's interested in bottom-up political movements. He's interested in

kind of mass social activism. And prohibition was definitely those things. I think going back,

poking around in Zinn's book, I think he perhaps mentions it, like literally says the word

prohibition once in the book. But certainly he doesn't talk about it at all.

Yeah, I think he's just wholly uninterested in the episode.

Why would that be the case, do you think? Do you have any speculations there?

Well, I mean, my guess, and really it's kind of reflecting on the book, right? The Smashing

...