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A review by kevin_shepherd
Berlin: Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World by Sinclair McKay
4.0
“Other European capitals acknowledge the dark past with elegantly aestheticized monuments; they seek to smooth the jagged edges of history. Not here.”
Covering the history of Berlin from 1919 to 1989, author Sinclair McKay chronicles the city’s socioeconomic rise and fall and rise and fall and rise. Starting with the post-WWI Weimar Republic, McKay guides us through a metropolis forever changed by the advent of Nazism, the maniacal vision of Adolf Hitler, and the terror of Kristallnacht.
When the tide of World War II turned decidedly against Germany (roughly 1943), Berlin, once thought imperishable, became the preferred landing zone of countless allied bombs and explosive artillery shells. In the aftermath the rubbled capital was quartered between the Soviets, the French, the British, and the Americans.
Ultimately socialist-capitalist frictions between the USSR and the US deteriorated into a near endless cycle of retributions and reprisals—culminating in the storied ’Berlin Wall’ which infamously went up in 1961 and famously came down in 1989. Through it all, Berlin and its people persevered.
“Every city has history, but Berlin has too much.” ~David Chipperfield, architect
I am impressed by Sinclair McKay’s ability to infuse new life into an era of world history that has been written about ad nauseam. This is an exquisitely composed account that should appeal to most every History Buff on the planet; ‘extensively researched and nicely written. 4 Stars.
Covering the history of Berlin from 1919 to 1989, author Sinclair McKay chronicles the city’s socioeconomic rise and fall and rise and fall and rise. Starting with the post-WWI Weimar Republic, McKay guides us through a metropolis forever changed by the advent of Nazism, the maniacal vision of Adolf Hitler, and the terror of Kristallnacht.
When the tide of World War II turned decidedly against Germany (roughly 1943), Berlin, once thought imperishable, became the preferred landing zone of countless allied bombs and explosive artillery shells. In the aftermath the rubbled capital was quartered between the Soviets, the French, the British, and the Americans.
Ultimately socialist-capitalist frictions between the USSR and the US deteriorated into a near endless cycle of retributions and reprisals—culminating in the storied ’Berlin Wall’ which infamously went up in 1961 and famously came down in 1989. Through it all, Berlin and its people persevered.
“Every city has history, but Berlin has too much.” ~David Chipperfield, architect
I am impressed by Sinclair McKay’s ability to infuse new life into an era of world history that has been written about ad nauseam. This is an exquisitely composed account that should appeal to most every History Buff on the planet; ‘extensively researched and nicely written. 4 Stars.