Algora Publishing

Brewing battles; the history of American beer.

An American historian specializing in the politics of alcohol production, Mittelman surveys the economics and regulation as well as official and popular political forces affecting the brewing, selling, and consumption of beer from colonial times to 2006. Central to her story, though by no means the whole thing, is the role that alcohol and tobacco taxes played in supporting the financial activities of the US government from 1862 to 1913, and how beer brewers reacted by forming the country's oldest trade association, which lasted 124 years. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

William McKinley, apostle of protectionism.

This political biography of William McKinley judges the assassinated president to have been "the world's greatest capitalist." It challenges portrayals of McKinley as a tool of big business in the incarnation of capitalist Mark Hanna; objects to the idea that McKinley's defense of protectionism was poorly articulated and emotionally based; and celebrates his ability to form an electoral coalition of the second tier nouveau riche capitalists, the middle class, and the working class through his articulation of a vision of idealist capitalism. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)