When the Wall Came Down: The Berlin Wall and the Fall of Soviet Communism (review)
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It's startling to consider that, for most of Schmemann's target audience, the events herein antedate their birth. Therefore, although this title's ostensible focus is on the climactic opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a hefty amount of historical background is included, beginning with brief reference to the aftermath of World War I and then touching on World War II, the partition of Germany and Eastern Europe, the divergent social, political, and economic fortunes of West and East Germany, and the impact of Gorbachev's policy of glasnost on Soviet satellite nations. Schmemann, who was chief correspondent in Germany for the New York Times in 1989, offers an able, knowledgeable, but somewhat dryly presented account. He shares few personal experiences at the opening of the Iron Curtain, and the resulting volume evinces little of the gripping immediacy of, for instance, Wilborn Hampton's vivid journalistic memoirs (Kennedy Assassinated!, BCCB 10/97; September 11, 2001, BCCB 1/04). It does, however, supply an appended selection of New York Times articles from 1955 to 1990 that coordinates directly with the text and offers an excellent starting point for primary source research. Substantial supplementary materials include black-and-white and color photos, full color maps, time line, index, and source notes and suggestions for further reading (again, exclusively drawn from the New York Times).
