From award-winning author and travel writer Rory MacLean, the history of Germany’s capital city—from world wars to climate change initiatives, this is the story of Berlin through portraits of its leaders and architects, heroes and victims, mythmakers and artists

The site of some of the world’s brightest and most devastating ideas, leaders, and movements, Berlin’s history is full of conflict and tension, yet today has embraced a culture that continues to push creative boundaries from art to music. With an insider’s eye and a travel writer’s keen sense for storytelling, Rory MacLean tells the story of Berlin through its leaders and rebels, key thinkers and icons, and the people who made the city what it is today, for better or worse.

Once Europe’s grand capital, Berlin’s relationship with war is unlike any modern city today, from the devastation of Allied forces to the construction of the Berlin Wall. MacLean brings readers through this history by illustrating the lives of its most influential individuals, from artist Käthe Kollwitz to former chancellor Angela Merkel, and their contributions to Berlin’s multi-layered history.

Today, millions of tourists flock to its state-of-the-art museums and its hallowed music venues. Berlin is a city of diversity and innovation, too—it has educated dozens of Nobel Prize winners and is a leader in developing the technology necessary to combat climate change. There remains political struggle and insecurity in a complex global political theater, but Berlin has evolved grown into its role as hub for European culture.

MacLean’s captivating insight and unique approach to the historical and contemporary figures essential to Berlin’s story makes for a fresh, singular history of a city beset by contradiction and will appeal to any curious reader.

“Praise for Rory MacLean

“MacLean must surely be the outstanding, and most indefatigable, traveler-writer of our time.”—John le Carré