L Sond

This important book traces the evolution of grassroots social movement in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and reveals the democratically spirited, subversive forms of communication practiced behind the Wall before it fell in 1989. From the political jokes shared in private, to the informational events, underground publications, and weekly "peace prayers" that were sheltered by Evangelical-Lutheran churches, to the demonstrations of 1989, to the onslaught of exposé work after the Wall fell, East Germans resisted and rebelled in many humble but brilliant ways.

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be Black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post–9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of WWII, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. But what has the Iron Curtain left in its wake? Timothy Phillips travels its full 3,000-mile route to craft this new people's history of a defining twentieth-century conflict. Here, in the borderlands where a powerful clash of civilizations took form in concrete and barbed wire, he uncovers the remarkable stories of everyday people forever imprinted by life in the Curtain's shadow.