Buildings and society. Essays on the social development of the built environment

drinking -because of the economic changes wrought by their temperance predecessors and class superiors. Eventually the upper portion of the artisan "Washingtonian Societies" distinguished itself from the more "vulgar" and secular, lower portions by taking on the colouration and tactics (including legal coerciveness) of the wealthy evangelicals. Antebellum prohibitionism quickly faded after its peak of 1855, its native-born opponents' resistance stiffened by the threatened effectiveness of statewide prohibition laws which incorporated an assault on property, and reinforced by the influx of immigrant cultures still deeply committed to alcohol. Tyrrell's greatest originality is his establishing the historical significance of antebellum temperance. Although occasionally repetitive and lacking in substantial international perspective on temperance, Sobering up is a clear, detailed, and well-organized monograph. (Sober or not, the makers of the book bound in one chapter upside down.) G. J. Barker-Benfield Associate Professor of History State University of New York at Albany