This well-conceptualized and well-argued history of the border separating East and West Germany illustrates that even as it was shaped by politics, nature shaped politics in turn. A detailed and concrete case study in the mutual dependence of environment and society that will interest historians of Germany and environmental historians alike.
Astrid M. Eckert is Associate Professor of History at Emory University in Atlanta. She earned her PhD in History at Free University Berlin, Germany. She is the author of Struggle for the Files. The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War (2012). She was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy, and a Humboldt Foundation Fellow.