Retracing the Iron Curtain

A 3,000-Mile Journey Through the End and Afterlife of the Cold War

By: Timothy Phillips

Narrated by: Gerard McCarthy

Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of WWII, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. It divided Europe from north to south for 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 to craft this new people's history of a defining twentieth-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 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 night his movie premiered in East Germany—the very night the Berlin Wall fell. And a railroad worker recounts the 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.

©2022 Timothy Phillips (P)2023 Tantor

Great story!

Very interesting approach to the iron curtain and how it affected day to day life.

Fascinating study of how a seemingly bygone era is still alive and well along the former iron curtain.

The narrator was engaging and interesting. The vignettes with various people living along the former iron curtain made the history come alive.