Berlin--East and West, day and night--in the 80s before the Wall fell. Through the eyes of a U.S. philosophy student. And Jewish, which makes for moments awkward, poignant, crass, funny, and always lurking. A city was divided, America the occupier, and the cigarettes not named Salem because it sounds too Jewish. The debut memoirs from the author of Moral Clarity, a N.Y. Times "2008 Notable Book."

Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany, and former professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University. Author of acclaimed books on morality, reason, and Kant.