The Long Thirst

A grand anecdotal study--Coffey, author of Agony at Easter (1969), Imperial Tragedy (1970), and Lion by the Tail (1974), wastes no time with tales about somebody's home brew exploding in the basement, devotes only one sentence to the Untouchables, and gets right down to business: Prohibition as business, and the politics of Prohibition. On the fringe are night club operators and rumrunners; at the center are national churchmen like adulterous Bishop Cannon, crooked fundraisers for the Anti-Saloon League, Mayor Big Bill Thompson of Chicago and his underworld counterparts, Harding's bought-up…