"The author—one of the most original cultural historians currently writing—provides a very rich account of the refounding of cultural life in the public sphere of postwar Berlin, at first amidst the ruins, and then with the Cold War-induced division of the city. . . . It's a fine combination of concreteness and imagination, and a lot of fun to read."—Geoff Eley, author of Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870-1930