Description

A WATERSTONES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 ONDAATJE PRIZE

‘A masterful portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities… A must-read’ PETER FRANKOPAN

‘Such a delightful read’ KATJA HOYER, The Times

‘Berlin may well be Europe’s most enigmatic city and John Kampfner is the ideal guide.’ JONATHAN FREEDLAND, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist

‘Gripping’ Financial Times

No other city has had so many lives, survived so many disasters and has reinvented itself so many times. No other city is like Berlin.

Ever since John Kampfner was a young journalist in Communist East Berlin, he hasn’t been able to get the city out of his mind. It is a place tortured by its past, obsessed with memories, a place where traumas are unleashed and the traumatised have gathered.

Over the past four years Kampfner has walked the length and breadth of Berlin, delving into the archives, and talking to historians and writers, architects and archaeologists. He clambers onto a fallen statue of Lenin; he rummages in boxes of early Medieval bones; he learns about the cabaret star so outrageous she was thrown out of the city.

Berlin has been a military barracks, industrial powerhouse, centre of learning, hotbed of decadence – and the laboratory for the worst experiment in horror known to man. Now a city of refuge, it is home to 180 nationalities, and more than a quarter of the population has a migrant background. Berlin never stands still. It is never satisfied. But it is now the irresistible capital to which the world is gravitating.

In Search of Berlin is an 800-year story, a dialogue between past and present; it is a new way of looking at this turbulent and beguiling city on its never-ending journey of reinvention.

Publisher Review

A masterful portrait of one of the world's greatest cities. John Kampfner captures the many histories of Berlin - the joys and the beauties, the horrors and the suffering, the divisions and the dreams. A must-read. -- Peter Frankopan Berlin may well be Europe's most enigmatic city and John Kampfner - curious, sceptical and with an eye for the arresting detail - is the ideal guide. -- Jonathan Freedland, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist John Kampfner is an ideal guide to Berlin, its history and people, in this tour de force -- Orlando Figes No-one is better qualified than John Kampfner to write about Berlin - that living palimpsest of German, and thus European, history. His knowledge is both deep - historical, analytical - and wide, drawn from a large diaspora of knowledgeable contacts. One of Europe's foremost intellectuals, Kampfner is also incapable of writing a dull sentence, which allows this book to succeed as history, travel book, autobiography, treatise and love-letter. * Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny * Modern Germany is one of the political wonders of the world and John Kampfner one of its finest interpreters. It is a delight to have the two come together in this fascinating book. -- Daniel Finkelstein, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad This book will have you hurrying back to one of the most fascinating cities on earth. John Kampfner is a brilliant guide as he excavates layer after layer of Berlin's 800-year history, as it lurches from destruction to decadence, from horror to hope. A gripping, rich read full of personal anecdote seamlessly interwoven with scholarly detail. -- Julie Etchingham A brilliant but vexing love affair with a city that gets under the skin. Kampfner eloquently captures Berlin - a place of perpetual reinvention, lurid dreams, grotesque nightmares and impossible ideas. Rarely is scratching an itch as much fun as it is in Berlin. -- Matt Frei A beautifully researched, thoughtful and personal examination of Berlin's history. Sometimes it needs the perspective of an outsider to see a place clearly. -- Annette Dittert Excellent and provocative * The Sunday Times on Why The Germans Do It Better * One of the best English-language introductions in recent years to modern Germany and its politics: thoughtful, deeply reported and impeccably even-handed * The Times on Why the Germans Do it Better * Highly readable and well-informed... [Kampfner] mixes historical sweep with vivid reporting to celebrate Germany's strengths and achievements * Financial Times on Why the Germans Do it Better * With insights based on painstaking research and evidence gleaned from months crisscrossing the country... Kampfner's analysis is simply peerless * Literary Review on Why the Germans Do it Better * One of Britain's most distinguished political writers * Mail on Sunday on Why the Germans Do it Better * Kampfner roams widely in Germany and has a reporter's ear for the telling anecdote. He knows his history too -- Lionel Barber * The Spectator on Why the Germans Do it Better *