Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with fresh--sometimes startling--insights, written with immediacy and drama, "Berlin 1961" is a masterly look at key events of the 20th century, with powerful applications to these early years of the 21st.

"Winter Work is an exhilarating spy thriller set in East Germany after the fall of Berlin Wall, about a Stasi officer investigating the murder of a colleague who is helped by Claire Saylor. Emil Grimm, a Stasi colonel, has decamped to his dacha in the woods outside of Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. On a walk one morning, he discovers the body of a fellow intelligence officer with whom he was involved in a clandestine mission. Now Emil is...

"The Berlin Wall is arguably the most prominent symbol of the Cold War era, demarcating real and figurative divisions between east and west, Communism and capitalism, oppression and freedom. Its fall in 1989 is broadly understood as a pivotal moment in the history of the last century. For years afterward, tourists, locals, and even private businesses shipped fragments from the concrete structure around the world, turning it into a collectible commodity...

"In The Collapse historian Mary Elise Sarette shows that the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, was not, as is commonly believed, the East German government's deliberate concession to outside influence. It was an accident. A carelessly worded memo written by mid-level bureaucrats, a bumbling press conference given by an inept member of the East German Politburo, the negligence of government leaders, the bravery of ordinary people in East...

In the days before the treacherous overnight raising of the Berlin Wall, teenaged cousins Drew, an American army brat in West Berlin, and Matthias, a young communist in East Berlin, become wary friends on opposite sides of the Cold War. Interspersed throughout the story are captioned photographs from the era.

"Checkpoint Charlie is the story of the men and women - from both sides of the Cold War's political divide - who lived, served on, or escaped through the Berlin Wall during its life span (13th August 1961 - 9th November 1989). This physical monstrosity created by the East German communist state was to divide one of the most beautiful and by 1961, ruined cities of the world; dividing families, friends and lovers. Its creation, and its sudden collapse...

Describes the history of the Berlin Wall, from its construction in 1961 to divide the city of Berlin to its destruction in 1989.

"Sophie has spent her entire life behind the Berlin Wall, guarded by land mines, towers, and attack dogs. A science lover, Sophie dreams of becoming an inventor ... but that's unlikely in East Berlin, where the Stasi, the secret police, are always watching. Though she tries to avoid their notice, when her beloved neighbor is arrested, Sophie is called to her principal's office. There, a young Stasi officer asks Sophie if she'll spy on her neighbor...

Summoned by the Queen of England to save the world once again, trusty kid spy Mac B. navigates secret tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall to retrieve cheat codes from an adversarial scientist only to find himself trapped in East Germany.

"Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, people around the world still remember the joyous drama of that night and the days and nights that followed. Even at a time before smartphones and twitter helped people experience an event together, the surprise opening of the Berlin Wall was viewed by millions on television sets and splashed across headlines around the globe. For Berliners and Germans themselves, dramatic days followed...