Checkpoint Charlie : The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

Resumen del libro

On August 13 1961, work started on erecting an eleven-foot-high concrete barrier that would ultimately cost a billion dollars and would come to serve as the physical and symbolic division between Eastern and Western Europe. Over the next twenty-eight years, thousands would attempt to scale the Berlin Wall and flee communist East Germany - and more than 100 people would perish.

Checkpoint Charlie stood at the confluence of the arterial routes that ran through the heart of Berlin and was the epicentre of global conflict for nearly three decades, until the fall of the Wall in November 1989.

Published to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall, and capturing the mistrust, oppression, paranoia and fear that gripped the world during the era of the Wall's existence - as well as the indomitable spirit of those many people who risked their lives to escape tyranny - Checkpoint Charlie will draw on interviews with key eyewitnesses to tell the heart-rending story of the Berlin Wall and the lives that it changed irrevocably.

Biografía del autor

Iain MacGregor es historiador y trabaja como editor de libros de no ficción desde hace más de treinta años. Entre los autores con los que ha colaborado se encuentran historiadores de la talla de Simon Schama, Michael Wood o James Barr. Como autor ha publicado Checkpoint Charlie, una aclamada historia del Berlín de la Guerra Fría, y colabora con medios como The Guardian o The Express, así como en las revistas Spectator y BBC History. A principios de los años ochenta, cuando era estudiante de Historia, visitó Alemania Oriental, el Báltico y la Unión Soviética, y desde entonces se ha sentido cautivado por la historia moderna. Iain es miembro de la Royal Historical Society y vive en Londres con su mujer y sus dos hijos.