Retracing the Iron Curtain: A 3,000-Mile Journey Through the End and Afterlife of the Cold War Hardcover

Across 3,000 miles and over eight decades, this epic new people's history of the Cold War makes eye-opening sense of a defining 20th-century conflict—and how it continues to shape our world today. Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of World War Two, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. It divided Europe from north to south for a staggering forty-five years. Crossing it in either direction was always a political act; in many cases, it was a crime to even talk about doing so. New generations have grown up since these borders came down, freed from the restrictions of the Cold War era. But what has the Iron Curtain left in its wake? Timothy Phillips travels its full 3,000-mile route—from inside the Arctic Circle to where Armenia meets Azerbaijan and Turkey—to craft this epic new people's history of a defining 2oth-century conflict. Here, in the borderlands where a powerful clash of civilizations took form in concrete and barbed wire, he uncovers the remarkable stories of everyday people forever imprinted by life in the Curtain's long shadow. Some look back on the era with nostalgia, even affection, while others despise it, unable to forgive the decades of hardship their families and nations endured. A director recalls the astonishing night his movie premiered in East Germany—November 9, 1989, the very night the Berlin Wall fell. And a railroad worker recounts the 1951 hijacking of a passenger train from Czechoslovakia that breached the Curtain, granting those aboard immediate asylum in the West. These narratives, by turns harrowing and heartening, paint a vivid portrait of the new Europe that emerged from the ruins. Phillips reveals the Iron Curtain's profound impact on our world today—even as he punctures the fault lines we draw. Publisher's note: This book was published in the UK under the title The Curtain and the Wall. The Iron Curtain divided the continent of Europe, north to south, with the Berlin Wall as its most visible, infamous manifestation. Since the Cold War ended and these borders came down, Europe has transformed itself. But we cannot consign the tensions and restrictions of the past to history. At a time when Russia is once again making war and when divisions elsewhere in Europe are on the rise, these old fault lines have new resonance. What do the Curtain and the Wall mean today? What have they left in their wake? In this major new book, Timothy Phillips travels the route of the Iron Curtain from deep inside the Arctic Circle to the meeting point of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. He explores the borderlands where the clash of civilizations was at its most intense between 1945 and 1989, and where the world’s most powerful ideologies became tangible in reinforced concrete and barbed wire. He looks at the new Europe that emerged from the ruins. The people he meets bear vivid witness to times of change. There are those who look back on the Cold War with nostalgia and affection. Others despise it, unable to forgive the hard and sometimes lost decades that their families, friends, and nations endured. In these historic landscapes lie buried many of the seeds of our world’s current disputes–over borders, and about belonging and the meaning of progress. Walking the Iron Curtain transports the reader across 3,000 miles of Europe and through eight decades, to show how one of the defining stories of the 20th century continues to shape our world today. An epic people's history of life in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, from an intrepid reporter who traveled all 3,000 miles of the former East-West barrier to investigate the deep and lingering aftermath of the Cold War "An epic people's history of Europe's fraught East-West divide, by an intrepid author who followed its path from the Arctic to Turkey"-- Provided by publisher