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9781438461403

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I've long admired Alfred McCoy's writing about American imperial overreach and surveillance. In this lively new book, it is fascinating to see him discover both a spy and those spied upon within his own extended family. I've never read a family history quite like it. - Adam Hochschild, author of Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son With the same insight and wit that has made him the preeminent historian of American empire, Alfred McCoy takes us on a riveting journey from brewery to boardroom to bedroom that winds through the German immigrant experience, World War I surveillance, the vagaries of Prohibition, the rebirth of Scientific American and its fight for nuclear disarmament, and the unforgettable Bert and Harry Piel advertising campaign. Come for the beer but stay for the highly personal four-generational family history that opens a fascinating window into the successes and setbacks of family-owned business in America. - Peter J. Kuznick, author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America Alfred W. McCoy is best known for courageously exposing the misdeeds of US intelligence agencies, from drug-running to torture. In Beer of Broadway Fame he takes on perhaps his biggest challenge: to untangle the rise and fall of Brooklyn's Piel Bros. brewery and tell more than a century of Piel family history. Himself related to the legendary German-American brewers, McCoy explores through this impressive clan great themes of the American experience. Hard-working immigrants eager to assimilate; the country's craving for beer; wartime repression of suspect groups; the disaster of Prohibition; the 'managerial revolution' and its peril for the family enterprise-it's all there in McCoy's riveting epic. Most of all, McCoy gives voice to the love, ambition, rivalry, and intrigue that define any family across generations. Reading about his, you will think in new ways about your own. - Jeremy Varon, author of The New Life: Jewish Students of Postwar Germany

...an inherently fascinating and consistently compelling read from beginning to end. - Midwest Book Review I've long admired Alfred McCoy's writing about American imperial overreach and surveillance. In this lively new book, it is fascinating to see him discover both a spy and those spied upon within his own extended family. I've never read a family history quite like it. - Adam Hochschild, author of Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son With the same insight and wit that has made him the preeminent historian of American empire, Alfred McCoy takes us on a riveting journey from brewery to boardroom to bedroom that winds through the German immigrant experience, World War I surveillance, the vagaries of Prohibition, the rebirth of Scientific American and its fight for nuclear disarmament, and the unforgettable Bert and Harry Piel advertising campaign. Come for the beer but stay for the highly personal four-generational family history that opens a fascinating window into the successes and setbacks of family-owned business in America. - Peter J. Kuznick, author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America Alfred W. McCoy is best known for courageously exposing the misdeeds of US intelligence agencies, from drug-running to torture. In Beer of Broadway Fame he takes on perhaps his biggest challenge: to untangle the rise and fall of Brooklyn's Piel Bros. brewery and tell more than a century of Piel family history. Himself related to the legendary German American brewers, McCoy explores through this impressive clan great themes of the American experience. Hard-working immigrants eager to assimilate; the country's craving for beer; wartime repression of suspect groups; the disaster of Prohibition; the 'managerial revolution' and its peril for the family enterprise-it's all there in McCoy's riveting epic. Most of all, McCoy gives voice to the love, ambition, rivalry, and intrigue that define any family across generations. Reading about his, you will think in new ways about your own. - Jeremy Varon, author of The New Life: Jewish Students of Postwar Germany

Author Information

Alfred W. McCoy is the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of many books, including Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation and Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State.

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