On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall -- infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe -- seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime -- nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist's eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member GüSchabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC's Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jär, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom -- and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall. Mary E. Sarotte is Dean's Professor of History at the University of Southern California. A former White House Fellow, Humboldt Scholar, and journalist, she is the author of the prize-winning 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, a Financial Times book of the year. "This is easily the best book on the fall of the Berlin Wall."-Fareed Zakaria, CNN GPS Book of the Week "Sarotte is a superb historian. She's ferociously intelligent, but what really separates her from her colleagues is her acute sensitivity to human drama."-Washington Post "A blow-by-blow account of the birth of modern Germany on November 9th 1989, when, at an otherwise dull press conference in East Berlin, a government spokesman said that a new law permitting East Germans more freedom to travel would go into effect immediately. It changed Europe forever."-Economist Best Books of2014 "This is history writing at its very best, full of drama and pathos, yet immaculately researched and elegantly written."-BBC History Magazine 2014 Books of the Year "The Collapse challenges our narrative of the Soviet Union's collapse, 25 years after the Wall's fall. Sarotte deftly balances individual human agency and contingency with larger political forces to show that the Berlin Wall coming down was neither inevitable nor the result of global power shifts alone."-Zócalo Public Square 10 Best Books of 2014 "Sarotte has produced a skillful, scrupulously documented, nuanced reconstruction of how a series of mistakes by East German leaders and officials...turned what was meant to be a carefully managed process of controlled opening...into the world's most celebrated festival of popular liberation."-Guardian (UK) "A fast-paced, fascinating account of the final weeks, days and hours of the wall."-Telegraph (UK) "Sarotte's lively and engaging book scrupulously details the events of November 9, 1989, when the world watched in shock as the Berlin Wall came down."-Foreign Affairs "[A]n authoritative and fast-moving account of the events that led up to the collapse of East Germany."-FinancialTimes, Best Books of2014: History "Brief, intense, and gripping.... Sarotte's effort is magnificent.... This

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