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Table of Contents
About The Book
'My only complaint is that it was so fascinating I wish it had been longer. What a story!' Philip Mansel
BERLIN is Europe’s most fascinating and exciting city. The great movements that have shaken Europe, from the Reformation to Marxism, have their origins in Berlin’s streets.
With its unique dialect, exceptional museums, experimental cultural scene, its liberated social life and its honest approach to its history, it is as challenging a city as it is absorbing. Too often Berlin is seen through the prism of Nazism and its role on the front line in the Cold War. Important, frightening and interesting as those periods are, its history starts much earlier.
Telling the story of its people and its rulers, from its medieval origins to the present day, this is a fascinating and informative history of an extraordinary city.
BERLIN is Europe’s most fascinating and exciting city. The great movements that have shaken Europe, from the Reformation to Marxism, have their origins in Berlin’s streets.
With its unique dialect, exceptional museums, experimental cultural scene, its liberated social life and its honest approach to its history, it is as challenging a city as it is absorbing. Too often Berlin is seen through the prism of Nazism and its role on the front line in the Cold War. Important, frightening and interesting as those periods are, its history starts much earlier.
Telling the story of its people and its rulers, from its medieval origins to the present day, this is a fascinating and informative history of an extraordinary city.
About The Author
Photograph C: John Millar / Country Life magazine
Educated at Eton College and the University of St Andrews, Barney White-Spunner was commissioned in 1979. He was appointed Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry in 1996 and became Chief of Joint Force Operations for the national contingent in the Middle East in 2003. He was made Commander of the British Field Army in 2009, which post he held until December 2011 when he retired. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2002 and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2011 Birthday Honours. He began his literary career writing for The Field in 1992 and became editor of Baily's Hunting Directory in 1994. He is also the author of a history of the Horse Guards.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK (October 29, 2020)
- Length: 400 pages
- ISBN13: 9781471181559
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Raves and Reviews
'Superb. The city that is always "im Werden" has found its narrator... [Barney White-Spunner] has done something astonishing, constructing a narrative that spans more than a thousand years, that can only be told in the context of the higher political history of Germany, and indeed Europe, yet which at every turn shows his depth of personal affection for a city he knows so well and clearly loves. That mix of the private and the public is just one of the things that makes the book so absorbing.'
– Neil MacGregor
'An impressively clear and engaging biography of a fascinating city at the very centre of European history.'
– Antony Beevor
'My only complaint is that it was so fascinating I just wish it had been longer. What a story!'
– Philip Mansel
'Aware that Berliners complain the world knows their city only for its Nazi and Cold War epochs, White-Spunner unfolds a municipal history that illuminates the full complexity of this metropolis’s thousand-year evolution... Thoroughly engrossing!'
– Bryce Christensen, Booklist
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High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Berlin eBook 9781471181559
- Author Photo (jpg): Barney White-Spunner Photograph C: John Millar / Country Life magazine(0.1 MB)
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