There are no limits anymore – or so everyone believes at the start of the 1990s. The Berlin Wall has fallen, the world is coming together, connections are being made. The first strands of the World Wide Web are being woven together, the first search machines programmed. In Berlin, techno becomes the soundtrack to reunification, there are neon colours everywhere you look, piercings and tattoos are now part of the mainstream, and the “tramp stamp” becomes the stylistic symbol of the decade. But beneath the heady surface, old conflicts are breaking out again, and ghosts from the past are returning. In eastern Germany, but not only there, a right-wing youth culture is emerging on a scale never seen before. In Yugoslavia, the unthinkable happens: the first war on European soil since 1945. Political Islam becomes a global threat, and the long decade ends on 11 September 2001 with the attack on the World Trade Center, which was also a symbol of the playful, globalised post-modern world.
In a sweeping, colourful panorama, Jens Balzer tells the story of a decade when people believed in the future and in the motto “anything goes” – but which was also the beginning of a new era of limits, identities and conflicts.
“Clever, detailed and brilliantly written.” Tages-Anzeiger about High Energy
