Berlin Divided City, 1945-1989 [Paperback]

A great deal of attention continues to focus on Berlins cultural and political landscape after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but as yet, no single volume looks at the divided city through an interdisciplinary analysis. This volume examines how the city was conceived, perceived, and represented during the four decades preceding reunification and thereby offers a unique perspective on divided Berlins identities. German historians, art historians, architectural historians, and literary and cultural studies scholars explore the divisions and antagonisms that defined East and West Berlin; and by tracing the little studied similarities and extensive exchanges that occurred despite the presence of the Berlin Wall, they present an indispensible study on the politics and culture of the Cold War.

Sabine Hake?is the Texas Chair of German Literature and Culture in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of six books, includingTopographies of Class: Modern Architecture and Mass Society in Weimar Berlin(2008) andScreen Nazis: Cinema, History, and Democracy(2012), and has published numerous articles and edited volumes on German film and Weimar culture.

Eschewing the primacy of political history, the authors provide a nuanced picture of a city that, in many respects, was less divided than the Cold War mindset would have us believe&This interesting volume demonstrates the many ways in which East and West Berlin were mutually influential, and how commonalities extended beyond the division.? ??English Historical Review

This volume taps into the on-going fascination with Berlin but, refreshingly, broadens the historical and conceptual scope, asking us to reconsider some of the assumptions we tend to make about the relationship between East and West Berlin during the time of the citys division&The volume is so well conceived and simply so intelSd