In Search Of Berlin Av John (Editor) Kampfner

<p><b>A WATERSTONES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023</b><br><b>LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 ONDAATJE PRIZE<br><br></b><b>''A masterful portrait of one of the world''s greatest cities... A must-read'' PETER FRANKOPAN</b><br><b><br>''Such a delightful read'' KATJA HOYER, <i>The Times</i></b><br><br><b>''Berlin may well be Europe''s most enigmatic city and John Kampfner is the ideal guide.'' JONATHAN FREEDLAND, <i>Sunday Times</i> bestselling author of <i>The Escape Artist</i></b><br><br><b><i>''</i>Gripping'' <i>Financial Times<br></i><br></b><b><i>No other city has had so many lives, survived so many disasters and has reinvented itself so many times. No other city is like Berlin.</i></b><br><br>Ever since John Kampfner was a young journalist in Communist East Berlin, he hasn''t been able to get the city out of his mind. It is a place tortured by its past, obsessed with memories, a place where traumas are unleashed and the traumatised have gathered.<br><br>Over the past four years Kampfner has walked the length and breadth of Berlin, delving into the archives, and talking to historians and writers, architects and archaeologists. He clambers onto a fallen statue of Lenin; he rummages in boxes of early Medieval bones; he learns about the cabaret star so outrageous she was thrown out of the city.<br><br>Berlin has been a military barracks, industrial powerhouse, centre of learning, hotbed of decadence - and the laboratory for the worst experiment in horror known to man. Now a city of refuge, it is home to 180 nationalities, and more than a quarter of the population has a migrant background. Berlin never stands still. It is never satisfied. But it is now the irresistible capital to which the world is gravitating.<br><br> <i>In Search of Berlin</i> is an 800-year story, a dialogue between past and present; it is a new way of looking at this turbulent and beguiling city on its never-ending journey of reinvention.</p>