Pathways to Prohibition: Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes. By Ann-Marie E. Szymanski. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. 344p. $89.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.

In this book, Ann-Marie Szymanski achieves what may have been an unintended goal: She demonstrates that the success of a social movement that seeks transformative public policy depends on both the development of flexible, highly adaptative strategies for local reforms and the emergence of opportune conditions for the consolidation of local successes into national—in this case, constitutional—reform. Her study of Prohibition politics and organizational strategies crafted over time brings together insights from new institutionalists who explain how the unique interests of governmental agencies and “states” shape policy outcomes, as well as from political scientists whose studies on the relationships between ideologies, political strategies, and small group dynamics have generated varied pressures for policy reform. If the social movement theorists pay attention to this study, they will enlarge their perspectives, build more sophisticated models, do more comprehensive research, and explain more fully and accurately how social movements actually generate successful political reforms.