Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, The Berlin Wall, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

MacGregor, Iain

Published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, New York, 2019

As new condition white boards, navy blue spine, and silver spine lettering contained in an as new condition non price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Preliminary Page Quotes; Prologue: October 1961; Epilogue: Four Memories; Appendix: Fatalities at the Berlin Wall 1961-1989; Acknowledgments; Notes; Bibliography; Photography Credits; Index and About the Author. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs and diagrams, a section of black-and-white photographic plates, and a black-and-white photographic frontispiece. "Checkpoint Charlie is emblematic of both the tension and romance of the pivot between Third World War and peace. Iain MacGregor captures brilliantly and comprehensively both the danger and exhilaration that I and other reporters, soldiers, and people experienced intersecting with the Wall, and the fears and the eventual hope that flowed through it -- a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Europe we have inherited." -- Jon Snow, Channel 4 News, UK. "Based on extensive, detailed interviews with people on both sides of the Wall -- soldiers and civilians, Communists and anti-Communists, spies, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens -- it offers a riveting panorama of everyday life as it was actually lived at ground zero of the Cold War." -- William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author. "The story of divided Berlin has been told so often that there seemed little new to say about it. Iain MacGregor's book, with its wealth of eyewitness stories, proves how wrong that was -- and how understanding the last Cold War is crucial for anyone wh wants to understand the new one." -- Martin Sixsmith, former correspondent for BBC News. "A powerful, fascinating, and groundbreaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important crossing point on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and its allies confronted the Soviet Union during the Cold War. As tensions between East and West rose during the Cold War, East Germany committed millions of dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s. The eleven-foot-high barrier would eventually evolve to consist of seventy-nine miles of fencing, three hundred watchtowers, two hundred fifty guard dog runs, and twenty bunkers and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, ten thousand people attempted to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it, desperate to escape the repressive totalitarian East German regime for the freedom of the west. In November 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Germans demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world's media flocked to capture the moment that, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. The Wall was opened and then torn down, stone by stone. Checkpoint Charlie, the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades, was the location of the greatest jubilation as crowds flowed across the border. As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that once gripped Berlin in this brilliant work of historical journalism. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, M16, and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; \politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie." -- from the inner front and rear jacket flaps. Seller Inventory # 007088

Bibliographic Details

Title: Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, The Berlin...
Publisher: Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, New York
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: As New
Dust Jacket Condition: As New
Edition: 1st Edition