Throughout the 20th century, Berlin stood at the centre of a convulsing world. This history is often viewed as separate acts—the suffering of the First World War, the cosmopolitan city of science, culture and sexual freedom Berlin became, steep economic plunges, the rise of the Nazis, the destruction of the Second World War, the psychosis of genocide, and a city rent in two by competing ideologies. But people do not live their lives in fixed eras. An epoch ends, yet the people continue—or try to continue—much as they did before. Berlin tells the story of the city as seen through the eyes not of its rulers, but of those who walked its streets. In this magisterial biography of a city and its inhabitants, bestselling historian Sinclair McKay sheds new light on well-known characters and draws on never-before-seen first-person accounts to introduce us to people of all walks of Berlin life. Drawing on a staggering breadth of culture—from art to film, opera to literature, science to architecture—McKay's latest masterpiece shows us this hypnotic city as never before.