The Berlin wall was a symbol of life behind the Iron Curtain for nearly 28 years. It was a rigorously guarded barrier to keep citizens of East Germany under the Communist German Democratic Republic. In The Fall of the Berlin Wall, William F. Buckley Jr. details the events leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the effects the wall and it's demise had on the people of Berlin, the other Eastern Bloc countries, and the rest of the world.

After the second World War, the 1945 Yalta Conference determined the fate of Germany. It was divided into four sectors, as was Berlin, with each sector being ruled by a World War II victor. Great Britain, France, the United States controlling West Germany and West Berlin and the Soviet Union controlling East Germany and East Berlin. The powers were to make policy decisions together. The Soviet Union, however, stopped...