A review by maisieden
The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961-1989 by Frederick Taylor

3.0

At some points it was really interesting, especially near the start it gave a lot of information about how Germany began, but some of it was quite dull/textbook-like and seemed to just give facts with little analysis. It was very accessible in terms of style and would benefit someone with little knowledge of modern German history. However, as I have studied the GDR at A level a large portion of the book did not give me much new information. It did go into some areas of the period that I haven't studied in detail, relating to West Germany and international relations at the time, but some of these areas were quite dry and uninteresting to me (particularly the details about Kennedy's reaction to the wall and Lyndon Johnson's visit to West Berlin). In contrast, I really appreciated the insight it gave into Germany as a whole both 15 and 30 years on (as I have the updated 2019 version).