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An ambitious undertaking, Faust's Metropolis : A History of Berlin aims to chronicle the history of Germany through the microcosm of its most dramatic city. Alexandra Richie's thousand page tome spans from the time of Nero to Helmut Kohl. It is an encyclopedic description of the Schicksal Stadt Deutschlands--the City of German Destiny--filled with the politics of rulers and the ideology of artists.
Richie doesn't romanticize Berlin; early on, she invokes Goethe's view of the city as bourgeois, brash, and onerous. "Like the metropolis in Faust it has always been a rather shabby place," Richie comments. "It is neither an ancient gem like Rome, nor an exquisite beauty like Prague, nor a geographical marvel like Rio. It was formed not by the gentle, cultured hand which made Dresden or Venice but was wrenched from the unpromising landscape by sheer hard work and determination." By placing her historical account in a world-encompassing perspective, the culture described in Faust's Metropolis comments on the whole of Germany and its people.
The author is most eloquent in describing the recent history of the city. As a resident during its divided years, she describes Berlin as the ultimate "border city," on the frontline of the dueling Weltanschauungs of the Cold War. Her tone is familiar in describing the changing face of the city, and her enthusiasm evident as the book moves into the modern era. Filled with the insights of its unique and myriad residents, Faust's Metropolis recounts Berlin's culture, providing the reader with a thorough history and authoritative analysis.
Customer Reviews:
Alexandra Richie Hates Berlin.......2006-02-04
I was assigned Faust's Metropolis for a survey of Berlin's history. I was surprised that it was out of print only ten years after it had been published... until I actually managed to read the entire book.
Richie has a hate-on, to be blunt; she does not like Germans at all, and constructs an elaborate story of how inherently backward Berlin and Berliners while going out of her way to flatter minor Polish historical figures that few people outside of Poland have ever heard of. (Meanwhile, she provides little meaningful evidence that, outside of crazed leaders like the Soldier King, Prussia was any more regressive than other autocratic states of the time such as Poland and France.)
One wonders if Richie is some sort of objectivist, because she soon dives into a biased, counterintuitive and sometimes lo-fact carnival of attack against common Germans, the labor movement and Yalta while hagiographizing Reagan.
Nevertheless, while Richie's work clearly needs work it is perhaps the best-researched concise history of early Berlin I'm aware of, which unfortunately isn't saying a lot.
Broad in scope but horrible bias.......2005-07-25
This book has several things going for it that I particularly liked. First off I appreciate how complete it is. While one could say that that the last 150 years of Berlin history were the most important, this book gives an account of Berlin from the first settlements in the area all the way up to reunification and beyond. I particularly appreciated learning about Berlin/Cölln in the middle ages as well as what the city experienced in The 30 Years War. The book is also extremely readable and quite engrossing.
The book staggers, however, when Richie comes to World War II. There are factual errors, as other reviewers have pointed out. Richie also falls into the camp that sees the allies as having given Berlin, East Germany, and Eastern Europe away to Stalin. She claims that Roosevelt just gave the city away, accusing him of "criminally stupid behaviour" and almost suggests that Roosevelt and Stalin were somehow conspiring against Churchill. Her argument would seem more convincing if, in the following four hundred pages, she did not go out of her way to portray anyone left of Joe McCarthy in the same light.
The problem with Richie's text is that it's about absolutes. Having read the text, one gets the sense that Churchill, Adenauer, Kohl, Reagan (yes, Richie falls to Reagan's feet too, I'm surprised she didn't claim that he tore down the wall single handedly) etc. could do no wrong, whereas the East German government was only evil, all the time, thanks to the assitance of Kennedy, Willy Brandt, and Günter Grass. Not a very healthy approach to history.
great overview of euro politics.......2004-12-31
Ms Ritchie tells the story of Berlin in a truly engaging manner,don't let the length scare you,even if you are a casual lover of history.This is no dry academic treatise.And Ms.Ritchie does a tremendously good job at explaining the origins of Socialism,Communism,and Nazism--and their terrible excesses.If you want a quick,readable grasp of European politics,read this and parts of Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence.
Let the man go, purgatory for Faust.......2002-09-11
This is a swashbuckling whole shebang account of moden Germany in a Berlin track-mind, long, yet fast, and is a good backdrop to the military history of the World Wars. The good detail piles up and the book gets better towards the second half, and was especially interesting from the inter-war period onward, with short but to the point snapshot accounts of the rise of Hitler after the cultural overdrive of the Twenties. It is good to zoom in for close detail, and then zoom out to keep the pace moving, given such a long range. That the book does. And that detail tells it best, sometimes in chilling fashion. Goethe or Marlowe's Faust. You be the judge.
Too broadly focused.......2002-06-29
The part of Richie's book that was truly about Berlin was good. The problem was that she spent too much time and space discussing the history of Prussia/Germany. What I wanted -- and what I assume you are looking for -- is a history of the city of Berlin. That is, when buildings were constructed, details of municipal government, urban planning, major social events pertaining to the city, etc.
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Transforming Barcelona: The Renewal of a European Metropolis
Tim Marshall
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The Landscape Urbanism Reader
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Barcelona The Great Enchantress (Directions)
ASIN: 041528841X |
Book Description
This unique book, written by local experts in the city, deals with the transformation of Barcelona during the last twenty years. Barcelona has been held up as a model of urban planning and economic regeneration amongst built environment professionals. The redesign of square parks and streets throughout the city in the 1980s first attracted attention and praise and then the 1992 Olympics hosted in the city raised international awareness. The city received many awards and accolades including a Gold Medal from the RIBA. The selection of writings is well illustrated throughout with maps, drawings and photographs and will be of interest to architects, planners and urban designers as well as those interested in the social and economic impacts of regeneration.
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Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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On or About December 1910: Early Bloomsbury and Its Intimate World (Studies in Cultural History)
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The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany
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The Origins of Modern English Society
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The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France - 1885 to World War I
ASIN: 0520222415 |
Book Description
Between 1890 and 1918 the city of Berlin evolved into a commercial and industrial hub that also became an international center for radical new ideas in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Jews were key leaders in developing this unique cosmopolitan culture. Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918 vividly documents the many ways that Jewish artists and entrepreneurs participated in this burst of artistic creativity and promoted the emergence of modernism on the international scene.
The book and exhibition at The Jewish Museum highlight leading cultural figures such as Max Liebermann, a founder of the Berlin Secession, and Herwarth Walden, who founded Der Sturm; artists such as Ludwig Meidner and Jakob Steinhardt; pioneers of cabaret, theater, and film, including Max Reinhardt and Ernst Lubitsch; art dealers, publishers, and writers; and leading intellectual and political figures such as Martin Buber and Georg Simmel. These and other fascinating individuals are represented by more than 200 diverse objects: paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, books, letters, posters, graphic arts, theater memorabilia, and film. The book includes eight essays by scholars of German and Jewish culture and art history that provide a truly interdisciplinary interpretation of the Berlin renaissance.
The period represented in Berlin Metropolis was a time when Jews were traditionally restricted from participating in major areas of German public life such as the army, government, and the university. But by turning to the "alternative public spheres" characteristic of urban society--galleries, cafés, journals, theaters, cabarets--they emerged as innovative cultural leaders whose intellectual and artistic impact is still felt today.
The exhibition, Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918, will be at
The Jewish Museum, New York, from November 14, 1999, to March 5, 2000; and the
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, from April 1 to June 11, 2000.
Book Description
This book analyses a peculiar phase in the history of Stockholm which has not previously been systematically investigated. Between 1750 and 1850 the Swedish capital experienced long-term stagnation, characterized by de-industrialization and slow population growth. In this study various aspects of the economic and social history of the period are examined in detail, including the decline of manufacturing, the causes of the extremely high rates of mortality and extra-marital fertility, and the distribution of economic resources. Social and spatial patterns of poverty are described and the trends and fluctuations in prices and real wages charted and compared with other European towns and cities.
Book Description
Bringing together the work of scholars in many disciplines, Women in the Metropolis provides a comprehensive introduction to women's experience of modernism and urbanization in Weimar Germany. It shows women as active participants in artistic, social, and political movements and documents the wide range of their responses to the multifaceted urban culture of Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s.
Examining a variety of media ranging from scientific writings to literature and the visual arts, the authors trace gendered discourses as they developed to make sense of and regulate emerging new images of femininity. Besides treating classic films such as Metropolis and Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, the articles discuss other forms of mass culture, including the fashion industry and the revue performances of Josephine Baker. Their emphasis on women's critical involvement in the construction of their own modernity illustrates the significance of the Weimar cultural experience and its relevance to contemporary gender, German, film, and cultural studies.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book for reviewing this time period!.......2001-10-09
Women in the Metropolis is a compilation of ten essays regarding women in Germany in the early 20th century. It is an excellent source for research of women in this time period. Very easy to read and keeps your attention. I would recommend it to anyone doing research or interested in this time period and culture.
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Ephesos Metropolis of Asia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture (Harvard Theological Studies)
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Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Harvard Theological Studies)
ASIN: 1563381567 |
Book Description
During the 1930's, 23 million peasants left their villages and moved to Soviet cities, where they comprised almost half the urban population and more than half the nation's industrial workers. Drawing on previously inaccessible archival materials, David L. Hoffmann shows how this massive migration to the cities--an influx unprecedented in world history--had major consequences for the nature of the Soviet system and the character of Russian society even today.
Hoffmann focuses on events in Moscow between the launching of the industrialization drive in 1929 and the outbreak of war in 1941. He reconstructs the attempts of Party leaders to reshape the social identity and behavior of the millions of newly urbanized workers, who appeared to offer a broad base of support for the socialist regime. The former peasants, however, had brought with them their own forms of cultural expression, social organization, work habits, and attitudes toward authority. Hoffmann demonstrates that Moscow's new inhabitants established social identities and understandings of the world very different from those prescribed by Soviet authorities. Their refusal to conform to the authorities' model of a loyal proletariat thwarted Party efforts to construct a social and political order consistent with Bolshevik ideology. The conservative and coercive policies that Party leaders adopted in response, he argues, contributed to the Soviet Union's emergence as an authoritarian welfare state.
Book Description
Fritz Lang's classic 1927 film Metropolis has justifiably become an icon for the complexities of Weimar culture. Among the important general issues it also raises are the relation between ideology and art, the status and authorship of the film text in the entertainment market, the city, the construction of gender, the relation between the human body and the machine in modernity, and the relation between mass and high culture. This volume provides a broad range of materials and resources for the study of Lang's film, including both well-known, previously published critical essays and contributions appearing for the first time here. The editors provide a two-part introduction that furnishes context for what follows: Bachmann's part deals with thegenesis, production, and contemporary reception of the film, while Minden's defines the problems posed by the text and reviews thesolutions to these problems as proposed by later generations of critics.The first part of the book proper includes selected contemporaryreviews, commentary by Fritz Lang and others involved in the making ofthe film, and extracts from Thea von Harbou's original novel. In thesecond part, eight modern scholars provide fresh essays on the genesis,promotion, and reception of the film. Approximately half of the materialin the volume has never before appeared in print. The volume will appealto students of German, film, cultural and intellectual history, andsocial theory.Michael Minden is University Lecturer in German atCambridge University and a fellow of Jesus College. Holger Bachmannreceived his Ph.D. from Cambridge on Arthur Schnitzler and film.
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Romantic Metropolis: The Urban Scene of British Culture, 17801840
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521839017 |
Book Description
Exploring diverse cultural productions from poems and paintings, to exhibition sites, panoramas, and political organizations, some of the most exciting critics of Romanticism do long-overdue justice to the role of the city in British Romanticism. Their essays challenge the traditional conception that Romanticism was rooted in nature and rural life, by demonstrating that much of its uniqueness originated within the city. Examining the Romantic period from the urban perspective, they reveal how rapid developments in population, industry, communication, trade, and technology set the stage and the tone for many great literary and cultural achievements.
Book Description
Once the hub of the tsarist state, later Brezhnev's "model Communist city"--home of the Kremlin, Red Square, and St. Basil's Cathedral--Moscow is for many the quintessence of everything Russian. Timothy Colton's sweeping biography of this city at the center of Soviet life reveals what such a position has meant to Moscow and ultimately to Russia itself.
Linchpin of the Soviet system and exemplar of its ideology, Moscow was nonetheless instrumental in the Soviet Union's demise. It was in this metropolis of nine million people that Boris Yeltsin, during two frustrating years as the city's party boss, began his move away from Communist orthodoxy. Colton charts the general course of events that led to this move, tracing the political and social developments that have given the city its modern character. He shows how the monolith of Soviet power broke down in the process of metropolitan governance, where the constraints of censorship and party oversight could not keep up with proliferating points of view, haphazard integration, and recurrent deviation from approved rules and goals. Everything that goes into making a city--from town planning, housing, and retail services to environmental and architectural concerns--figures in Colton's account of what makes Moscow unique. He shows us how these aspects of the city's organization, and the actions of leaders and elite groups within them, coordinated or conflicted with the overall power structure and policy imperatives of the Soviet Union. Against this background, Colton explores the growth of the anti-Communist revolution in Moscow politics, as well as fledgling attempts to establish democratic institutions and a market economy.
As it answers persistent questions about Soviet political history, this lavishly illustrated volume may also point the way to understanding Russia's future.
Customer Reviews:
Timothy J. Colton's Moscow: Governing a Socialist Metropolis.......2000-03-26
Mr. Colton's range of depth in this comprehensive book is exemplary. He has an incredible wealth of knowledge on the subject of Moscow's development both during and after the Soviet Union. His writing is superb, with many illustrations, tables, and diagrams.
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