[.ca] Berlin and Its Culture: A Historical Portrait (ISBN 0300072007)

From Amazon.com:
What is the culture of a city? Is it the corporate personality, the politics of the founders, the undertaking of its artists and visionaries? Berlin and Its Culture surveys all these arenas, paying particular attention to the writers, philosophers, actors, and later, interior designers and filmmakers. In relating the lives and accomplishments of its inhabitants, Ronald Taylor maps the social patterns of the city in fascinating detail. Taylor takes care to include accounts of life in both East and West Berlin, and while he does provide some coverage of Nazi culture, he does not perform an in-depth analysis. Rather, with his focus on the periods of artistic proliferation, he writes at length on the Romanticism of Berlin's early years and the flourishing of literature during the Weimar period. The book itself is a weighty, glossy endeavor. The reader can not turn a page or two without encountering an illustration, painting reproduction (often in color), or elaborate map of the changing face of the city. Berlin and Its Culture is a visual, visceral treat and an appealing survey of one of the world's most complex locales.

Comprehensive, well-written, interesting:
This book may seem a bit daunting at first, given the density of text (even though there are a lot of photographs), but if you know anything about either German culture or Berlin, you will find a foothold in the book and learn a great deal as you continue reading it. A particularly cheering feature is the amount of time the author spends on Berlin from its foundation to the 1840s, a period that many other authors either rush over or treat poorly. Moreover, in limiting himself to the most significant and representative works or artists in each period, Taylor leaves a lasting impression at the end of every chapter--there's a lot of information here, but it's organized so as not to be overwhelming, and particularly the repeated pattern of literature, music, art, architecture, is helpful. Also, the illustrations are beautiful and well chosen.