When the Wall came down in 1989 there was euphoria both East and West, but particularly in the East where communism had failed to deliver the millennium and disillusionment and unrest correspondingly went deepest. However, this book is retrospective as well as up to date, delving back into Berlin's history through the Nazi era. It is plain that through the postwar - and Cold War years the big powers used the city quite cynically as a political pawn: caring nothing about its inhabitants or about Germany's future, so that it was left to the people themselves to force the issue - which they finally did. Since then, German unity has brought fresh problems and a new kind of disillusionment, especially among East Berliners who feel that they have been patronised as the poor relations. The book is informative but rather densely written, and the small print does not make the going any easier.