Berlin Journal, 1989-1990

by Robert Darnton

Overview

“Makes us appreciate something of what it felt like for Germans East and West as the world ended.” —Anthony Bailey, New York Times Book Review

Shock waves from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 continue to pulse through German society. As the difficult process of reunification continues, it is worth recalling the revolutionary moment when immense crowds took to the streets of Leipzig and Berlin under the banner “We Are the People” and brought down one of the world’s most oppressive dictatorships. Robert Darnton’s eyewitness account of those historic days “is direct and vivid. His prose conveys the immediacy of the drama.” He gives us a memorable cast of characters, from two experts on the repair of broken-down Trabis to the environmental councilor for the polluted city of Bitterfeld, and Isaak Behar, a Jew who managed to survive the Holocaust while hiding in wartime Berlin. With wit and insight Darnton takes us behind the scenes to meet “ordinary people grappling with great change, humanizing history.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393310184
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/17/1993
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	340
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1180L (what's this?)

About the Author

Robert Darnton is the author of many award-winning works in French cultural history, and taught for years at Princeton and Harvard. He is a chevalier in the Légion d’Honneur, and winner of the National Humanities Medal.

Editorial Reviews

These firsthand but uneven reports from respected scholar Darnton describe the momentous events (public demonstrations, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall) that led to Germany's reunification. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Well-known historian Darnton ( The Great Cat Massacre , LJ 12/1/83) was spending an academic year in Berlin when he decided to temporarily set aside his 18th-century historical research in order to monitor closely the momentous events taking place around him. The result is this journal which, aside from being a chronology of the months before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, delves deeply into the mindset of the soon-to-be-liberated East Germans. Despite the obvious cultural and linguistic similarities shared by the two Germanies, the author discovers remarkable differences as well. The strength of this book, as of John Borneman's similar account After the Wall ( LJ 2/15/91), is in its immediacy and its portrayal of revolutionary events through the eyes of those most af fected by them, the East Germans.-- Ian Wallace, Agriculture Canada Lib., St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec

Library Journal

Historian Darnton was in Berlin during the auspicious events of two years ago. His "journal" is more accurately a collection of essays, portraits, interviews, and analyses. A bibliography should have been included. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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