If you think Berlin is cool now then boy oh boy you should have been there between 1919 and 1933. The embarrassment of hedonistic riches that were the Weimar Republic would knock today’s moccachino’d up metropolis into a cocked hat. Though it may not always be a good idea to judge a book by it’s cover it’s pretty safe to judge a cultural movement by the artistic quality of it’s book covers. Which is pretty handy as Taschen’s ‘The Book Cover in the Weimar Republic’ features an incredible array of imagery and text in it’s most artistic form. From kid’s books to political pamphlets the groundbreaking worlds of Expressionism, Realism, New Objectivity and Constructivism can all be seen taking form upon the front page. Given that author and Berliner Jürgen Holstein’s extensive collection of Weimar era artworks, objects, books, catalogs, and posters now lives in the Getty Center in LA you can tell that this is one book you can judge by the covers.
