Berlin, Alexanderplatz: Transforming Place in a Unified Germany

Characterizing it as a public square of outstanding symbolic importance in contemporary Berlin, Weszkalnys (anthropology, U. of Exeter) looks at Alexanderplatz on the ground in 1990, a year after the Berlin Wall came down, and compares it to its portrayal in Alfred D繹blin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz--The Story of Franz Biberkopf, where it becomes the conduit for modernizing innovation and interchange in Germany after World War I. She discusses constructing future Berlin, the disintegration of a socialist exemplar, promising plans, the object of grievance, robust square, and whose Alexanderplatz? Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)