Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany -- Katja Hoyer - Hardcover

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the ashes of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the definitive history of East Germany, "a fascinating, sparkling book, filled with insights" (Peter Frankopan)

In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics.

In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer sets aside the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR to offer a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country, revealing the rich political, social, and cultural landscape that existed amid oppression and hardship. Drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews and documents, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, beyond the Wall.

Author: Katja Hoyer
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 09/05/2023
Pages: 496
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.74lbs
Size: 9.51h x 6.05w x 1.52d
ISBN: 9781541602571

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2023
Publishers Weekly 07/10/2023

About the Author
Katja Hoyer is a German British historian, journalist, and the author of the widely acclaimed Blood and Iron. A visiting research fellow at King's College London and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a columnist for the Washington Post and host of the podcast The New Germany. She was born in East Germany and is now based in the UK.