Dry Diplomacy is the first complete treatment of the diplomatic ramifications of Prohibition. Spinelli explores the widespread effects on international law, shipping, foreign policy, and trade. In this context, American interests appeared to be pitted against those of Britain as she sought to recover from the First World War by expanding trade, promoting domestic industries such as whiskey distilling, and reasserting shipping dominance in the sea lanes. American interference with international shipping-undertaken in order to disrupt what Presidents Harding and Coolidge deemed British alcohol smuggling-would lead to a diplomatic crisis in the mid-1920s.