Berlin's historical legacy, combined with its renewed status as capital city and subsequent rapid redevelopment, has made it a prime focus for academic studies of memory, space, and place. Clare Copley's book is no exception here, yet it signals a new departure from existing studies. Deftly bringing together approaches from cultural geography, urban history, and political theory, it draws on three examples of National Socialist prestige architecture and their post-unification development to show how the politics of the past is critical in informing governmentality. As she persuasively argues, the Berlin Republic is a paradigmatic example of post-authoritarian governmentality, in which the political culture is notably defined in opposition to the dictatorial past.

The monograph begins by providing a theoretical and methodological overview, focussing particularly on Foucault's concept of governmentality. The subsequent sections then focus on the individual case studies—the former Aviation Ministry, the Olympic Stadium, and Tempelhof Airport—each of which also serves to highlight one of three particular elements of post-authoritarian governmentality: plurality, rationality, and freedom. Throughout her analysis, Copley critically seeks to ensure that a plurality of voices is heard, and draws on a wide range of sources, including archival materials, fieldwork, minutes of meetings of relevant committees, architectural reports and guestbooks, as well as online resources, pamphlets, and leaflets.

The former Aviation Ministry, now the Detlev Rohwedder Haus, forms the first case study. Having served as the home of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD), then the GDR's House of Ministries, and subsequently the Treuhandanstalt in the 1990s, Ernst Sagebiel's colossal building was perhaps inevitably subjected to much attention before and during its conversion to the Federal Finance Ministry. What Copley especially draws out here is that—despite the intention to preserve the site's plurality through uncovering different layers of history within the building—decisions were often determined by perceptions of historical “value.” In particular, preservation efforts often reversed the changes of the immediate postwar period, thus erasing much of the GDR's imprint on the building (and presumably also that of the immediate post-unification period under the Treuhandanstalt, about which little is said). Rather than serving as an overtly heterogeneous site, the end result is instead one of uniformity.

The history of the second case study, the Olympic Stadium, proves to be equally complex and layered. Here, Copley traces in detail the decision-making processes around renovating and “dealing with” its past after unification, arguing that decisions made in the early post-unification period differ markedly from those of the mid-2000s. By this time “a particular response to the legacies of National Socialism had been formulated and divergencies from it were not welcome” (90). The dominant paradigm that had developed advocated the preservation—rather than the concealment or destruction—of difficult heritage, which was to be displayed with clear, rational information about its origins and subsequent interventions. Such efforts were clearly designed to juxtapose the dictatorial past with the democratic present, displaying the former as the “other.” Yet Copley suggests that the binary of National Socialist versus non-National Socialist is beginning to be challenged at this site, suggesting signs of movement beyond post-authoritarian governmentality.

The final example of Tempelhof Airport continues this line of argument, demonstrating significant divergence from the previous two cases. Indeed, the site's postwar history—notably its role in the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift and as point of departure for West Berliners and GDR refugees to the “free” Western world—has caused it to be remembered not so much as a site of dictatorship but primarily as a site of freedom. As Copley states, interventions at the site have thus been understood “not as an indication of how the Berlin Republic responds to dictatorship but how it celebrates its overcoming” (132). This is illuminated particularly in the last chapter, in which Tempelhofer Feld is examined as a heterotopia, where the hybridity of the site is characterised by both freedom and regulation. While accessibility and transparency remain key concepts at this site, its development is driven not by the politics of the past, but rather—as Copley argues—by the politics of the advanced liberal city.

The notion of post-authoritarian governmentality drives this compelling monograph forward, and Copley leaves us in no doubt that the Berlin Republic still feels the need to demonstrate its democratic credentials in the face of its dictatorial pasts. As the discussion of Tempelhof demonstrates, however, there are indications that this may be beginning to fade. Time will surely tell whether this is a pattern emerging elsewhere, or whether this is the result of specific histories and contingencies at certain sites. It is certainly worth remembering that decisions made on the ground are not always driven by the politics of the past but are contingent upon multiple other factors, many of which have little to do with the history in question. While Copley recognises this fact, her theoretical framework could sometimes allow a little more space for the messiness and pragmatics of urban planning. Situated at the crossroads of several disciplines, however, this study is theoretically innovative, thoroughly researched, and highly readable. Copley manages to approach her subject matter from everyday perspectives—whether alighting at the Olympic Stadium by S-Bahn or arriving at Tempelhof Airport by bicycle—while also asking searching questions about the interrelationship between the built environment and political structures. The odd typo aside, this study is a valuable and original intervention into the ever-growing body of literature on the built environment in Berlin, which invites comparative studies on the concept of post-authoritarian governmentality across different histories and geographies.