Berlin Wall

<p><strong>This vivid account of the Wall and all that it meant reminds us that symbolism can be double-edged as a potent emblem of isolation and repression became in its destruction an even more powerful totem of freedom. -- <em>The Atlantic Monthly</em></strong></p><p><strong><em>NOW WITH AN UPDATED EPILOGUE 30 YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF THE WALL</em></strong></p><p>On the morning of August 13 1961 the residents of East Berlin found themselves cut off from family friends and jobs in the West by a tangle of barbed wire that ruthlessly split a city of four million in two. Within days the barbed-wire entanglement would undergo an extraordinary metamorphosis: it became an imposing 103-mile-long wall guarded by three hundred watchtowers. A physical manifestation of the struggle between Soviet Communism and American capitalism that stood for nearly thirty years the Berlin Wall was the high-risk fault line between East and West on which rested the fate of all humanity.</p><p>In the definitive history on the subject Frederick Taylor weaves together official history archival materials and personal accounts to tell the complete story of the Wall's rise and fall.</p>