'Superb. The city that is always "im Werden" has found its narrator... [Barney White-Spunner] has done something astonishing, constructing a narrative that spans more than a thousand years, that can only be told in the context of the higher political history of Germany, and indeed Europe, yet which at every turn shows his depth of personal affection for a city he knows so well and clearly loves. That mix of the private and the public is just one of the things that makes the book so absorbing.' Neil MacGregor