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The Berlin Wall

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The Berlin Wall

By: Frederick Taylor
Narrated by: Daniel Philpott
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About this listen

The appearance of a hastily constructed barbed wire entanglement through the heart of Berlin during the night of 12-13 August 1961 was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall.

A city of almost four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world for the first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse. This threat would vanish only when the very people the Wall had been built to imprison breached it on the historic night of 9 November 1989. The Berlin Wall is the definitive account of a divided city and its people.

©2009 Frederick Taylor (P)2011 Audible Ltd 20th Century Europe Germany Modern Politics & Government Russia Soviet Union War Imperialism Socialism Military Cold War Self-Determination Capitalism Interwar Period

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All stars
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The book is interesting and well documented. But the reader imitates accents throughout (e.g., German accent if quoting a German), which is extremely annoying and completely unnecessary.

Good book, awful reading

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This was the first book of Frederick Taylor's I came across. The Berlin Wall has always had a fascination for me, I'm not sure why it just did, perhaps it was because it was a tangible decide between east and west, between capitalism and communism or more likely it was because it open featured in one of the many spy-thrillers I loved so much as a child.


Professor Taylor's book is not a dry academic tome which you need a degree to enjoy and appreciate, all you need, and all I had was an interest in the subject. The Berlin Wall 1961 - 1989 begins with a brief history of Berlin, the origins of how the city came to be and the characters who ruled it before moving on to the purpose of the book - The Berlin Wall - from it's inception, construction, operation and sudden fall on 9 November 1989.


The book details the escapes both attempted and successful and the deaths of both escapees and guards 


I can't rate this book highly enough, I have read this book many times, it manages to take you effortlessly through the history of the wall, the people it affected and it's sudden demise in a really engaging way

The Story of a wall..it's more interesting than it

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Really good book and totally disagree with previous reviewers but foreign accents are really good and give this audiobook an additional flavors. Well researched and well read!

Absolutely amazing book!

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like all Taylor’s work, but the audiobook has numerous editorial errors with long repeated sections. Just needs cleaning up. As it is i find it hard work

The book is good,

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I enjoyed the book overall and thought the narrator very good. The accounts of the numerous escapes got a bit tedious at times but most were interesting. I would have liked a bit more on the demise of the wall but it would appear that the most important points of the history of the wall are well covered A good listen for anyone who enjoys modern European history.

Good account of recent history.

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