{"product_id":"9780241553787-beyond-the-wall","title":"Beyond the Wall","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEast Germany, 1949-1990. \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAN INSTANT \u003ci\u003eSUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * TELEGRAPH * SPECTATOR * PROSPECT * IRISH INDEPENDENT \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Utterly brilliant . Authoritative, lively and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-World War II Europe' Julia Boyd\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of the best young historians writing in English today. Well-researched, well-written and profoundly insightful, \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Wall\u003c\/i\u003e explodes many of the lazy Western cliches about East Germany' Andrew Roberts\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1990, a country disappeared. When the iron curtain fell, East Germany simply ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the GDR presented a radically different German identity to anything that had come before, and anything that exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Wall\u003c\/i\u003e, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer offers a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country. Beginning with the bitter experience of German Marxists exiled by Hitler, she traces the arc of the state they would go on to create, first under the watchful eye of Stalin, and then in an increasingly distinctive German fashion. From the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, to the relative prosperity of the 1970s, and on to the creaking foundations of socialism in the mid-1980s, Hoyer argues that amid oppression and frequent hardship, East Germany was yet home to a rich political, social and cultural landscape, a place far more dynamic than the Cold War caricature often painted in the West.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePowerfully told, and drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews, letters and records, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, the one beyond the Wall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2023: THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * FINANCIAL TIMES * INDEPENDENT * DAILY TELEGRAPH * NEW STATESMAN\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe instant\u003ci\u003e Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller, April 2023\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40778489200737,"sku":"9780241553787","price":25.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/products\/stand_11923848_jpg.jpg?v=1705526033","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780241553787-beyond-the-wall","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}