Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries, by Rory MacLean
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Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries, by Rory MacLean
Best Ebook PDF Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries, by Rory MacLean
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
Berlin is a city of fragments and ghosts, a laboratory of ideas, the fount of both the brightest and darkest designs of history's most bloody century. The once arrogant capital of Europe was devastated by Allied bombs, divided by the Wall, then reunited and reborn as one of the creative centers of the world. Today it resonates with the echo of lives lived. No other city has repeatedly been so powerful and fallen so low; few other cities have been so shaped and defined by individual imaginations.Berlin tells the volatile history of Europe's capital over five centuries through a series of intimate portraits of two dozen key residents: the medieval balladeer whose suffering explains the Nazis' rise to power; the genius Jewish chemist who invented poison gas for First World War battlefields and then the death camps; the iconic mythmakers like Christopher Isherwood, Leni Riefenstahl, and David Bowie, whose heated visions are now as real as the city's bricks and mortar. Alongside are portrayed some of the countless ordinary Berliners whose lives can only be imagined: the ambitious prostitute who refashioned herself as a baroness, the fearful Communist Party functionary who helped to build the Wall, and the American spy from the Midwest whose patriotism may have turned the course of the Cold War.Berlin is a history book like no other, with an originality that reflects the nature of the city itself. In its architecture, through its literature, in its movies and songs, Berliners have conjured their hard capital into a place of fantastic human fantasy. No other city has so often surrendered itself to its own seductive myths. Berlin captures, portrays, and propagates the remarkable story of those myths and their makers.
Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries, by Rory MacLean- Amazon Sales Rank: #139233 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-13
- Released on: 2015-10-13
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.26" h x .83" w x 5.49" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 432 pages
Review
“Brilliant.” ―National Geographic Traveler
“Berlin is the most extraordinary work of history I've ever read.... It's a work of imagination, reflection, reverence, perplexity, and criticism that reveals as much about the author's precocious mind as it does about the city he adores.... Stunningly beautiful writing.” ―The Washington Post
“MacLean reveals his prowess as a storyteller, flawlessly weaving together history, facts, and folklore.... [He] brings this 'city of fragments and ghosts,' with its fractured and volatile past, to life.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Sprawling, experimental, and in certain moments, ungainly but also deeply enthralling, much like the city itself.” ―Booklist (starred review)
“A series of imaginative and fanciful narrative segments--a history that is not all gloom and doom. ” ―Kirkus Reviews
“A wonderfully enjoyable, poetic and instructive tour through the history of this fascinating and changing city. A book that magnificently combines real history and pure reading pleasure. Not just for those interested in Germany, but for anyone interested in the history of Western culture.” ―Stephane Kirkland, author of Paris Reborn
“Grandly ambitious . . . splendid. [T]his book is a wonderful achievement, not justly to be summarized in the few hundred words of a review, but hauntingly representing, as in a tangled dream, six hundred years of history.” ―The Telegraph (UK)
“MacLean's wonderfully knowledgable overview of the city's history helps explain the place's enduring fascination.” ―The Guardian (UK)
“Vivid, imaginative . . . brilliant. What makes MacLean's history of Berlin stand out is that this is an intensely human document, a rich tapestry spanning five centuries and woven together through intimate portraits of twenty-one of its former inhabitants that collectively reveal the narrative of the city . . . Their stories are wholly engaging, written with the flair of a novelist.” ―The Observer (UK)
“Entertaining and ambitious . . . MacLean has written a great book about Berliners.” ―New Statesman (UK)
“superb...[MacLean] has a knack of approaching his subjects obliquely, catching them unawares....original and well-researched. MacLean is a highly visual writer, and his dialogue is crisp and believable. [He] deserves to win all the prizes going.” ―The Tablet (UK)
“Inventive, exhaustive, and energetic. Berlin is . . . a human story. MacLean tells it with a wonder, a sadness, and a compassion.” ―Herald Scotland
“[MacLean] writes with the lyricism of Bruce Chatwin and the traveller's eye of Marco Polo. He engages with his readers as if he is talking to an intelligent friend. Read this book if you already know Berlin, or will do one day.” ―The Oldie (UK)
“I loved it. It is such a beautiful way of understanding history, its stories are so vivaciously told, it is so heartfelt, so intelligent, and so talkative a book. So many of the characters do end up talking to each other, and the author is eavesdropping. It paints the past and the present, portrays Berlin as a portrait of someone you love. It is beautiful.” ―Jay Griffiths, author ofWild, Pip Pip, and Kith
About the Author Rory MacLean has known three Berlins: West Berlin, where he made movies with David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich; East Berlin, where he researched his first book, Stalin's Nose; and the unified capital where he lives today. He is the author of nine books and has won awards from the Canada Council and Arts Council of England as well as a Winston Churchill Traveling Fellowship. He was an International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award nominee and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. Best Guide to a City and Its People By Kristen24 This is the best guide to a city I have ever found - and I hurry to add that this is meant as a compliment.It isn't a standard guide, but provides a thrilling background to your journey, whether you actually set foot in Berlin or read it because of an interest in history. I travelled to Berlin for the first time this July. I don't know why I waited so long. In a way, I was expecting so much and was worried that it would disappoint. My interest dates back to school in England, where we would persuade the German teacher to play his Threepenny Opera records. History lessons were about Europe from 1870 onwards, and it seemed that so much was happening in every aspect of politics, monarchies and the arts.This book guided me at every turn - it highlighted the many-layered aspects of this fascinating place. During our time in Berlin we would chance upon a street, or building mentioned in one of the chapters.A guide book tells me facts - which I can easily forget - this book gave me stories, impressions of people's lives and a sense of their roles in this city.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful. Glimpses of the city and its people By Jill Meyer British author Rory Maclean has written a "history" of Berlin, that is really not straight history. It is, instead, a series of short "glimpses" at the city and its people, beginning in the Middle Ages when Berlin was just a settlement. He continues in time to today, mostly focusing on the last four hundred years.Maclean writes his story in both fiction and non-fiction; from straight prose to play-form he tells the stories of the unknown Berlin resident to the well-known Berliners who have contributed both the good and the bad to society. For every Fritz Haber - a converted German Jew who was the chemist who formulated poison gasses in WW1, leading to the gasses used in WW2 concentration camps - Maclean highlights the life of artist/pacifist Kathe Kollwitz, whose work was condemned to the fires as "subversive" in 1930's Berlin. (Ironically, Fritz Haber's development of Zyklon B was used to murder his own nieces and nephews a few years after his own death.)Rory Maclean sometimes uses secondary characters to describe life in Berlin through the ages. For instance, when writing about the GDR, he doesn't use the life of Erich Honecker - the post WW2 Communist leader - but rather uses individuals, "the people", when describing life under Communist rule. A devout Communist "Wall-maker", Dieter Werner - son of a Nazi soldier - is profiled in that section. During the Nazi era, Maclean focuses on architect Albert Speer and propagandist Joseph Goebbels - rather than Adolf Hitler, to look at the both the grotesque use of architecture and mind-warping to involve Berliners in Nazi will. He contrasts Nazi film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, who glorified on film the excesses of Nazi rule to actress Marlene Dietrich, who fled Berlin in the early 1930's rather than work under the Nazi regime and who entertained the Allied troops and did other war-work to help defeat Germany in WW2. The choice of those persons highlight Maclean's work; the individual always seems less than the over-all city of Berlin.Rory Maclean's book is one of the best history books I've read all year. But, it's not history-in-the-conventional sense, so beware of buying the book if you're looking for a straight history of the city. There are plenty of books for that by other writers; Rory Maclean's "Berlin" is about the city and its people.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. I think Jill Meyer's review nicely sums things up so I won't repeat her description ... By Eric C. Petersen I think Jill Meyer's review nicely sums things up so I won't repeat her description of how the book "works." Probably no other city has seen such titanic shifts in its psyche - from a wasteland after the 30 Years War, the arrival of Fredrick William the Great Elector in 1640 who began the defensive militarization of Berlin-Prussia to the virtual militarization of the state by his grandson the Soldier King, then his son's (Frederick the Great) war making on neighboring states, a venture that was headed for disaster until the Russian Tsarina died in 1762 and her successor, the mad Peter III, ordered his troops to change allegiances and join Frederick's side, a most bizarre twist of history that saved the Hohenzollern dynasty, allowed "Germany" to march forward as a leading industrial-military state in the 19th century until we ended up with Wilhelm II, WWI, and Germany, yet again, was crushed. Then we had Adolph; crushed again. Then the communists in East Germany and a good chunk of Berlin; then the wall comes down. Germans are often portrayed as "obedient" and highly conformist, but as Maclean shows in the book this view masks a whole lot of turmoil and intellectual friction below the surface, and some very weird personalities, Fredrick the Great being one in the 18th century to the likes of David Bowie who got his most peculiar life together while spending time in the city. These vignettes may tell us more about the 23 individuals covered in the book than a "hard" history of the city, but each story is fascinating and Maclean's attempt to describe "what was in the air" at various periods in history succeeds. His prose might get a tad purple at times, but his depth of knowledge about the city and its personalities is most impressive. An excellent read; I couldn't put it down.
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