Documentary Review: 'Prohibition: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick'
After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. – Section One, Amendment 18 to the Constitution of the United States On October 3, 2011, the 300 or so member stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aired A Nation of Drunkards, the first of three parts of Prohibition: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick. Written by Burns' long-time collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward and produced by Sarah Botstein, Lynn Novick, and Ken Burns, the series explored one of the most controversial - and least effective - experiments in social re-engineering in American history. Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky...