Life among the ruins

As home to 1920s excess and Hitler's Final Solution, Berlin's physical and symbolic landscape was an important staging ground for the highs and lows of modernity. In Cold War Berlin, social and political boundaries were porous, and the rubble gave refuge to a re-emerging gay and lesbian scene, youth gangs, prostitutes, hoods, and hustlers. 'From mothers sheltering in bunkers, children playing in the ruins, and rent boys plying their trade at train stations, to teenagers courting at the Wannsee, Jennifer Evans brings the experiences of Berliners alive. This is a fascinating book, which should be read by all those with an interest in the social history of the early Cold War.' - Josie McLellan, University of Bristol, UK 'A compelling and imaginative experiment in joining the history of urban space with the histories of social deviance and cultural reconstruction, Evans' book provides a richly detailed portrait of a radically dislocated world.' - Dagmar Herzog, author of Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.