Details the construction of Berlin, and explores homes and workplaces, circulation, commerce, and leisure in the German metropolis as seen through the eyes of all social classes, from the humblest inhabitants of the city slums, to the great visionaries of the modern city, and the demented dictator resolved to remodel Berlin as Germania.
"Metropolis Berlin evokes a kaleidoscopic panorama of impressions, opinions, and utopian hopes that constituted Berlin from the end of Imperial Germany to the rise of National Socialism. Iain Boyd Whyte and the late David Frisby invite the reader to be a flâneur in a truly great city, to marvel at the vitality of its urban spaces, and to listen to the cacophony of its voices and sounds. This extraordinary anthology of hundreds of documents tells the story of metropolitan Berlin by letting its inhabitants, visitors, and critics speak. A must have for every personal bookshelf and library."-Volker M. Welter, Professor for Architectural History, University of California at Santa Barbara
"Metropolis Berlinis not merely a magnificent compendium of sources, but is also an exciting work of scholarship in its own right. It presents this global city, in all its architectural, urbanistic, and discursive richness and complexity, like no other volume before it."-Frederic J. Schwartz, author of Blind Spots: Critical Theory and the History of Art in Twentieth-Century Germany.
"Metropolis Berlin is a superb collection of important texts. The selections are at once representative and delightfully off-beat; the editorial signposts are helpful but do not discourage rogue exploration or thematic innovation by the reader; and the presentation (from translation quality to layout design) is excellent. An absolute no-brainer, a must-have for every library, Germanist, and lover of Berlin."
