Books

We Are All Berliners

The experiences of the Northern Irish during the IRA struggles and the Eastern Germans during the cold war.

By Claudia Clark

Ever since I first visited Berlin the summer between my junior and senior years of high school in 1990, I fell in love it. The Berlin Wall had been down almost a year that point, but there were remains and evidence of the wall that had divided the city not too long ago. I had always been fascinated with Berlin and the Wall and thought numerous times about writing about it, but I was always stuck on what angle to take. Then, last spring while on vacation in Belfast in Northern Ireland, I became obsessed with the Peace Walls that had been built to divide the Catholic and Protestant populations during the IRA troubles in the 1970s.

Fully realizing embarking on this type of project of comparing the lives and experiences of two cities divided by walls would be a tremendous undertaking, I decided to begin the research project to see if the task were worth undertaking. Over the past several months, I began the long process of collecting, sorting, and reading articles and book on the topic.

Dear Barack

One of the great political friendships of the modern world, as told through key moments that shaped the twenty-first century

By Claudia Clark

Today, we know US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as two of the world’s most influential leaders, together at the center of some of the biggest controversies and most impressive advancements of our time. But while their friendship has been the subject of both scrutiny and admiration, few know the full story.

Faced with the challenges of globalization, the two often clashed over policy, but—as the first Black president and first female chancellor—they shared a belief that democracy could uplift the world. United by this conviction, they would forge a complicated but inspiring partnership.

A story of camaraderie at a global scale, Dear Barack shows that it is possible for political adversaries to establish bonds of respect—and even friendship—in the service of the free world.