Berlin: Portrait of a City | 
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| Author: Hans-christian Adam
Publisher: Taschen
Category: Book
List Price: $70.00
Buy New: $44.10
You Save: $25.90 (37%)
New (33) Used (10) from $39.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 324089
Format: Illustrated
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Mul
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 671
Shipping Weight (lbs): 9.3
Dimensions (in): 13.7 x 10.3 x 2.2
ISBN: 3822814458
Dewey Decimal Number: 943
EAN: 9783822814451
ASIN: 3822814458
Publication Date: May 31, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
The spirit of Berlin: a photographic journey into the city's history Berlin has survived two world wars, was divided by a wall during the Cold War, and after the fall of the Wall was re-united. The city emerged as a center of European power and culture. From 1860 to the present day, this book presents the story of Berlin in photographs, portraits, maps, and aerial views. With nearly 700 pages of emotional, atmospheric images, from giddy pictures of the Roaring Twenties to devastating images of war to heartwarming postwar photos of a city picking up the pieces?the Reichstag in ruins and later wrapped by Christo and Jeanne-Claude?this is the most comprehensive photographic study on Berlin ever made. More than a tribute to the city and its civic, social, and photographic history, this book especially pays homage to Berlin's inhabitants: full of hope and strength, in their faces is reflected Berlin's undying soul. ? Including images by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Helmut Newton, Ren? Burri, Robert Capa, Thomas Struth, and Wolfgang Tillmans as well as well-known Berlin photo-chroniclers such as Friedrich Seidenst?cker, Erich Salomon, Willy R?mer, and Heinrich Zille. ? Quotations from Berliners and Berlin connoisseurs such as Vladimir Nabokov, Alfred D?blin, Herwarth Walden, Marlene Dietrich, Billy Wilder, Max Schmeling, Willy Brandt, Helmut Newton, Simon Rattle, and David Bowie. Also included: an index of photographers? biographies. The author: Hans Christian Adam studied psychology, art history and communication studies in G?ttingen and Vienna. As a specialist in historical pictorial material, he has published numerous articles and books, including titless on travel and war photography. For thisbook he has researched in public and private collections, viewed tens of thousands of images and also profited from the rich collection of written material in the Berlin State Library. He is also the author of TASCHEN's Edward Sheriff Curtis: The North American Indian, Karl Blossfeldt, and Eug?ne Atget: Paris.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 "typical" berlin April 5, 2008
A great book and great pictures. Berlin has deeply changed in the last 150 years and all this has been documented precisely by great photographers: this the easiest way to show how. Texts are exhaustive too into describing "typical" life of a city.
Maybe Berlin has changed more in the last two decades then ever before: the last chapter of this book could be more fascinating and explorative, including the fact that there are a lot of pictures about it but it'd had took another book, perhaps. Maybe Berlin has changed again yet and is changing again now... so I'm waiting for a second edition.
Review January 1, 2008
This is a beautiful book! The photos are not only outstanding but they have zero pixillation. You can discern details such as the company name on the back of a horse drawn cart in a crowd. The turn of the century through the 1930's I thought were the best. You can stare at one and with out much effort find yourself slipping away into the photo.
The National Socialist period is not covered in depth nor do I think it needs to be. There are far an away plenty of books for that on the market. This is a book that can not be digested in one sitting. Take your time and look at each photo. The small details are fascinating.
My only problem with the book is the blue page stock that some of the entries is written on. It made it difficult to read the text. That is a minor quibble, especially in a book like this. If you buy a used copy make sure you check the price of shipping as this book weighs as much as a small childs school backpack.
Unglaublich! December 21, 2007
What a book! My mother as well as her sisters were born in Berlin during and after World War II, so I grew up hearing family stories of this amazing city. This book provided a tremendous visual aid to all these stories. Looking at the images I could picture my grandmother as a young woman, and my aunts and my mother in the postwar years.
If you have any connection to this amazing city, this book will bring tears to your eyes, for all the hardship and challenges it has faced, and with what fantastic grace it reemerged like phoenix from the ashes.
An amazing book! December 18, 2007
I purchased this as a gift for my little (20 yo) brother's birthday. He was born in Berlin. First of all this book is HUGE! I love that the explanations of the pictures are written not only in English, but in German. What a fantastic masterpiece.
A long trip back to the town of my birth September 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I left Berlin, early in 1937, aged five and a half, not to return until 1983, as a visitor, but I have childhood memories of the city, some of which go back to before I was three. Reinforcing those memories were tales I heard from my parents and the occasional, non-war-related movie. To see pictures of the streets and the faces, the clothing and the shop displays going back to before the First World War has been a source of continuing fascination for me. As is only proper in a book of this sort, the horrors that beset Berlin under Hitler and during the Second World War are also given their proper place in this book, a reminder that even one of the world's most sophisticated cities can be all but destroyed in degeneration and nevertheless, with appropriate assistance, as, for instance, the air lift, be resurected and restored. The photos were excellent, and the commentary, in English, German and French, insightful and instructive. Priced in the mid-thirties, the book sold at a substantially lower price than it did at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
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