BERLIN

A 20th-century history of a major European city that has “alternately seduced and haunted the international imagination.”

For most of the 1900s, writes Telegraph features writer McKay, “Berlin stood at the center of a convulsing world.” It was known for artistic and scientific innovation but also for flaming pyres of books. It features abundant culture, beautiful parks, and handsome streets, but it was also the center of fascism. The author begins in 1919, noting the speed with which Berliners cycled through stages of postwar deprivation, disorder, and extremism. Even while hyperinflation crippled the economy, there was a flowering of creativity in literature, cinema, and architecture. Velocity, writes the author, is a defining trait of Berlin. The Nazis replaced anarchy with violent repression, and for years, it seemed like Berlin would become an imperial capital. However, by 1945, large parts of the city were rubble. McKay focuses intensely on this period; more than half the book chronicles the collapse of the Nazi regime and the arrival of the Russians. Unfortunately, this brutal period has already been analyzed countless times, as shown by the book’s extensive bibliography, and the author has little new to add. Then the city became a Cold War front line, especially after the construction of the Berlin Wall. At this point, McKay’s narrative dwindles away. The destruction of the wall in 1989—a crucial moment in the city’s story—receives only a page. The author fails to explain Berlin’s 30-year evolution from isolation and stagnation to economic and cultural powerhouse, and he offers no examination of the impact of unification. Showing how the mosaic of the past informs the present should be a crucial target for a historical writer. Berlin is a city of layers and contradictions, but McKay misses it. For a more gratifying portrait, turn to Rory MacLean’s Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries or Barney White-Spunner’s Berlin: The Story of a City.

A largely dissatisfying history of one of the world’s great cities.