The decision by the United States to introduce Prohibition seems like an act of well-intentioned folly as the efforts to stop people from doing something they'd done since grape was first crushed were doomed to failure. But the reasons why Prohibition was introduced on January 17, 1920 were far more complicated than and not altogether related to a concern that America was drinking too much. The tide of the ban on the sale of alcohol was pushed by powerful political and economic currents:

Fionn Davenport tells the story...