When President Kennedy proclaimed : Ich bin ein Berliner', he could draw on the strange fascination Berlin has exercised for more than a century on the rest of the world. Read and Fisher have produced the essential guide to Berlin's past, present and future - a fitting companion to their recent success THE FALL OF BERLIN. The authors tell the story of Berlin both through political events and through a vast range of extraordinary personalities: politicians, soldiers and businessmen, artists, writers and performers, and the often bizarre Hohenzollern princes who ruled the city before 1918. Above all, they tell the story of the 'little people' - wave after wave of immigrants transformed into that unique character, the Berliner.
