Berlin Wall Archives - JSTOR Daily

Politics & History

Why Was There a Berlin Wall in the First Place?

A brief history of East and West Germany, and why they built the Berlin Wall.

Families walking beside the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Politics & History

Escapist Humor in East and West Berlin

Humor in East and West Berlin before the wall came down.

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

The Bossa Nova Craze

In the early 1960s, bossa nova was hugely popular in the US thanks to its reinvention as a social dance and its connections with upper-class culture.

Education & Society

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.

Politics & History

Guns in America: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings on the role of guns in US history and society introduces the field as a subject of scholarly inquiry.

Politics & History

How Stovemakers Helped Invent Modern Marketing

Most people in the United States have a stove in their kitchen. But how did this “must-have” come to be?

Politics & History

The Swedish-American Coffee Tradition

For many Swedish immigrants to the United States, coffee was a key to hospitality and a way to signal prosperity.

Why Was There a Berlin Wall in the First Place?

Escapist Humor in East and West Berlin

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