Book cover of Berlin Calling: A Story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall, and the Birth of the New Berlin

Book description

Berlin Calling is a gripping account of the 1989 'peaceful revolution' in East Germany that upended communism and the tumultuous years of artistic ferment, political improvisation, and pirate utopias that followed. It's the story of a newly undivided Berlin when protest and punk rock, bohemia and direct democracy, techno and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Berlin Calling as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

1980s Berlin is famous for two things: a wild counterculture and the sudden demise of the Wall. In recalling the outsize personalities he got to know on both sides of the Wall, Paul Hockenos brings the two strands of history as close together as can be done. The music and party scene, the communes and the squats, arose during this quiet lull in the Cold War, as political, musical, and sexual misfits found their niche in the dead zones along the Wall. Most of us living in Berlin in the 80s enjoyed the peace and quiet. This book shows what…

From Brian's list on understanding 20th-century Berlin.

If you love Berlin Calling...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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