Burning Down The Haus

LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL ‘Wildly entertaining . . . A joy in the way it brings back punk‘s fury and high stakes‘ Vogue It began with a handful of East Berlin teens who heard the Sex Pistols on a British military radio broadcast to troops in West Berlin, and it ended with the collapse of the East German dictatorship. Punk rock was a life-changing discovery. As these kids began to form bands, they also became more visible, and the dreaded secret police, the Stasi, targeted them. They were spied on by friends and family, expelled from schools and fired from jobs; they were beaten by police and imprisoned. But instead of conforming, the punks fought back, playing an indispensable role in the underground movement that helped bring down the Berlin Wall. ‘A thrilling and essential social history that details the rebellious youth movement that helped change the world‘ Rolling Stone ‘Original and inspiring . . . an important work of Cold War cultural history‘ Wall Street Journal