Liquor and the Liberal State

Cultural pastime, profitable industry, or harmful influence on the nation? Liquor and the Liberal State explores government approaches to drink and drinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Dan Malleck is a professor of the history of medicine in the Department of Health Sciences at Brock University and the director of Brock’s Centre for Canadian Studies. His publications include Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927–44, which won a Clio Prize for Ontario history, and When Good Drugs Go Bad: Opium, Medicine, and the Origins of Canada’s Drug Laws.

Dan Malleck strides across the huge complexities of the history of alcohol regulation in Ontario with confidence, wit, and keen insight. There is no other book like this one in the field.

Matthew J. Bellamy, author of Brewed in the North: A History of Labatt’s:

This finely crafted book is sure to stand the test of time. It is a profound addition to ongoing discussions of drink and order in Canada before prohibition.