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Mail on Sunday
A powerful, fascinating, and ground-breaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War.
Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped Berlin throughout this period.
Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Reagan, Gorbachev and other leaders of the period. 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, MI6 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. A brilliant work of historical journalism,
Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period.
'A lively, evocative account of the life and death of the world's most notorious wall. In capturing the essence of the old Cold War [MacGregor] may just have helped us to understand a bit more about the new one'
The Times
About the author
Iain MacGregor is an editor and publisher of nonfiction in the UK. His father served with the British Army on the Rhine in the 1950s, and enjoyed R&R in West Berlin. As a student he visited the Baltic and the Soviet Union, avidly followed events that unfolded in Berlin on the night of 9th November 1989 when the Wall fell and then later travelled through into the former Warsaw Pact territories and Berlin, visiting Checkpoint Charlie, still untouched. He lives with his wife and two children in London.
Summary
With a foreword by William Boyd, Checkpoint Charlie is a vivid and poignant exploration of the history surrounding the Berlin Wall through the lens of interwoven first-person experiences.
Foreword
With a foreword by William Boyd, Checkpoint Charlie is a vivid and poignant exploration of the history surrounding the Berlin Wall through the lens of interwoven first-person experiences.
