Now capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, and playing a leading role in Europe and the wider world, Berlin has risen from insignificant origins in two small medieval trading centres on swampy soil at the confluence of two rivers, the Spree and the Havel, in the Brandenburg marches (or Mark) in the centre of Europe. This chapter introduces the notion of a key moment, and outlines the three elements guiding the book: people, or changing demographic profiles; place, or the ways in which the size, shape, and principal functions of the city changed over time; and identity, or the ways in which Berliners and others imagined the city and constructed an ever-changing present in light of selected aspects of the past and contested aspirations for the future.

Although his family left Czechoslovakia fleeing Nazi persecution when he was a child, Tom Stoppard re-engaged with the country of his birth through his human rights work and his friendship with Vaclav Havel.

Human rights issues are touched on throughout Stoppard’s work and are at the centre of several plays from the 1970s addressing conditions in Eastern Europe. Stoppard’s concerns for human rights went beyond utilising these events as a backdrop for his plays. These plays were in themselves sometimes used as political weapons in the ambiguous battleground of the Cold War.

Though they met only late in life, the two great Czech-born playwrights Havel in Stoppard shared a close kinship in many areas, including both artistic interests and political commitments, though Stoppard is generally regarded as much less political than Havel, who became president of Czechoslovakia.