Berlin

The Story of a City

By: Barney White-Spunner, Barney White-Spunner - introduction

Narrated by: Jamie Parker

'My only complaint is that it was so fascinating I wish it had been longer. What a story!' Philip Mansel

BERLIN is Europe’s most fascinating and exciting city. The great movements that have shaken Europe, from the Reformation to Marxism, have their origins in Berlin’s streets.

With its unique dialect, exceptional museums, experimental cultural scene, its liberated social life and its honest approach to its history, it is as challenging a city as it is absorbing. Too often Berlin is seen through the prism of Nazism and its role on the front line in the Cold War. Important, frightening and interesting as those periods are, its history starts much earlier.

Telling the story of its people and its rulers, from its medieval origins to the present day, this is a fascinating and informative history of an extraordinary city.

Critic reviews

'Aware that Berliners complain the world knows their city only for its Nazi and Cold War epochs, White-Spunner unfolds a municipal history that illuminates the full complexity of this metropolis’s thousand-year evolution... Thoroughly engrossing!' (Bryce Christensen)

'An impressively clear and engaging biography of a fascinating city at the very centre of European history.' (Antony Beevor)

'My only complaint is that it was so fascinating I just wish it had been longer. What a story!' (Philip Mansel)

'Superb. The city that is always ‘im Werden’ has found its narrator... [Barney White-Spunner] has done something astonishing, constructing a narrative that spans more than a thousand years, that can only be told in the context of the higher political history of Germany, and indeed Europe, yet which at every turn shows his depth of personal affection for a city he knows so well and clearly loves. That mix of the private and the public is just one of the things that makes the book so absorbing.' (Neil MacGregor)

Fantastic history book

You get to know so much about this wonderful city with this book! Now I walk around and see every corner, every street and square or metro station name recognizing something I heard in the book. Not shying away from the dark pages of history but avoiding stereotypes and prejudice, the book enlightens with humor and profound responsibility. It is clear in the way it is written and read that both the writer and the narrator love Berlin. Through their eyes and voice, we too come to realize why Berlin is where we want to be! Thank you for this unique experience!