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The Picnic cover

The Picnic

Matthew Longo

1

award won

8

score

#1214 of 3,809 books · #478 in History

Won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing (2024).

The Picnic won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2024 and was shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Non-Fiction Crown. In August 1989, a group of activists did the unthinkable: they entered the forbidden militarised zone of the Iron Curtain - and held a picnic. On wisps of rumour, thousands of East German 'holiday-makers' had made their way to the border, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The stage was set for the greatest border breach in Cold War history. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union - the so-called end of history - all would flow from what happened next. Drawing on dozens of original interviews with those involved, Matthew Longo reconstructs this world-shaping event and its tumultuous aftermath.

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Publisher
Random House
ISBN-13
9781529920994
Genre
History
Topics
Cold WarFall of the Berlin WallEast German escape

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Matthew Longo has no other awarded or shortlisted books yet.

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