There is certainly no shortage of publications on the urban history of twentieth-century Berlin. Since the late 1990s, a growing number of studies have examined the upheavals and regime changes of Germany's twentieth century through the urban landscape of its capital. While initially the focus was on engagement with the legacies of the Nazi dictatorship in the city, in recent years attention has shifted towards the post-war era and the ways in which the competing systems of east and west shaped the cityscape of the divided Berlin. Studies by Emily Pugh, Eli Rubin and Florian Urban, to name just a few, have analysed socialist planning policies and revealed how the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) tried to reshape society by remodelling the spaces of the city.

Paul Stangl's book on urban planning in East Berlin between 1945 and 1961 is the latest addition to this already rather crowded field. Focusing on a number of prominent landmarks in the centre of Berlin, the book examines the cultural politics of the rebuilding of East Berlin from the ruins of World War II. In particular, it investigates how decision-makers balanced historic preservation against the opportunity to model the socialist future, often caught between practical considerations and the desire to erase the legacy of the Nazi dictatorship from the capital of the new socialist state. The first two chapters are mainly thematic in focus, examining the socialist purge of symbols of earlier regimes with a focus on memorials (chapter 1) and tracing the shifting plans for the remodelling of the city centre in the early post-war decades (chapter 2). The last four chapters zoom in more on specific spaces in East Berlin: the central boulevard Unter den Linden (chapter 3), the Prussian City Palace and its surroundings (chapter 4), the government quarter of Wilhelmstrasse (chapter 5) and the 1950s model housing project Stalinallee (chapter 6).

Stangl, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Sustainable Development at Western Washington University, uses his expertise on the practical aspects of urban planning to add a new facet to the scholarship on socialist East Berlin. The book impresses with its comprehensive consideration of aesthetic, practical and political concerns, thoroughly analysing architectural styles while never losing sight of internal debates within the socialist party or the planning bodies. The book's main contribution to the field lies in this synthesis of different perspectives. Risen from Ruins expands our understanding of historic preservation, modernism and socialist realism in East Berlin, shedding light on how planning decisions were shaped by the conflicting views of architects, planners and political decision-makers. Stangl demonstrates that planning policies in the early GDR often deny the neat categorization of a shift from socialist realism to modernism. Moreover, he shows that the priorities of decision-makers differed from site to site. For instance, while ideological concerns quickly led to the demolition of Hitler's chancellery, the decision to demolish the Prussian City Palace was far less unanimous and eventually determined less by the rejection of Prussianism than the socialist elites’ desire to create a space for mass gatherings in this spot. In other cases, such as the former Aviation Ministry building on Wilhelmstrasse, cost-benefit analysis meant that the building was preserved despite being one of the most prominent examples of Nazi architecture in the city. By combining a whole range of different case-studies, Stangl complicates the image of socialist planning processes and offers a nuanced analysis of the different architectural approaches which influenced the remodelling of East Berlin.

Another strength of the book is its concise and accessible style. The book outlines the planning process for prominent Berlin landmarks in a couple of pages each, richly illustrated with photographs and maps which make the discussion tangible even for those who are unfamiliar with present-day Berlin. At times, this breadth comes at the expense of analytical depth: parts of the book, especially the chapter on Unter den Linden, read very much like a textbook overview. This, however, is not necessarily a weakness. Stangl's study offers a highly accessible introduction to urban planning in East Berlin and will certainly find its way onto reading lists on post-war planning and urban restructuring under socialism. Indeed, it is easy to imagine excursion groups of British or North American urban history students walking around the centre of Berlin, equipped with extracts from Stangl's book. Thanks to its concise introduction to prominent planning sites as well as key concepts such as socialist realism, Risen from Ruins offers the ideal starting point for students of Berlin's post-war planning history.

All in all, Stangl adds to our understanding of the relatively well-researched socialist remodelling of East Berlin with a relevant book that impresses with its breadth and accessibility. For historians of East Germany, the strongest parts of the book are the sections that bring public opinion and the voices of local residents into the discussion of urban planning policies, such as the excellent chapter on Stalinallee which places the planning process in the context of social reform and unrest in 1950s East Germany. Risen from Ruins thus offers an important synthesis of the remodelling of East Berlin in the early post-war decades, but also provides a useful and readable case-study for scholars interested in urban planning under socialist regimes in the Eastern Bloc.