Robert Darnton
Berlin Journal
1989–1990
"Makes us appreciate something of what it felt like for Germans East and
West as that 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" (Times Literary Supplement). 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" ( Philadelphia Inquirer).
Robert Darnton is Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History at Princeton
University.
|
|
