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A History of East Germany
by Katja Hoyer
An International Bestseller• From the ashes of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the definitive history of East Germany, "a fascinating, sparkling book, filled with insights" (Peter Frankopan)
In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics.
In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer sets aside the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR to offer a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country, revealing the rich political, social, and cultural landscape that existed amid oppression and hardship. Drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews and documents, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, beyond the Wall.
"A historian discards the Cold War caricature of East Germany to deliver a compelling historical study...The definitive history of 'the other Germany, beyond the Wall.'" ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Historian and journalist Hoyer (Blood and Iron) captivates with this compassionate narrative of a lost nation...Hoyer's sympathetic chronicle succeeds in reclaiming East German history for the East Germans." ―Publishers Weekly
"What makes this meticulous book essential reading is not so much its sense of what East Germans lost but of what we never had. A history of the GDR that adds stability, contentment, and women's rights to the familiar picture of authoritarianism." ―Guardian
"[F]ast-paced, vivid and engaging." ―Times Literary Supplement (UK)
"Forget everything you thought you knew about life in the GDR. This terrifically colorful, surprising, and enjoyable history of the socialist state is full of surprises. Enormously refreshing."
—Sunday Times (UK)
"Brilliant. Hoyer is a historian of immense ability. Exhaustively researched, cleverly constructed, and beautifully written, this much-needed history of the GDR should be required reading across her homeland. Five stars."
―Daily Telegraph (UK)
"A rich, counterintuitive history of a country all too often dismissed as a freak or accident of the Cold War."
―Observer (UK)
"A vivid political story of the communist German state." ―Economist (UK)
This information about Beyond the Wall was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Katja is a Global Opinions columnist for the Washington Post and also writes for The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, Die Welt and other newspapers on current political affairs in Germany and Europe. Her historical essays have featured in History Today and BBC History Extra. She hosts the podcast The New Germany together with The Times' Berlin correspondent Oliver Moody. Her debut book Blood and Iron has been well-received by critics and academics alike. She was born in (East) Germany and read history at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena. Katja is now based in Sussex, England
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