PHANTOM BORDER

During the four decades the Iron Curtain divided the author¿s native Germany, over 1,200 rare animal and plant species found refuge in the highly militarized border strip¿today¿s Grünes Band or Green Belt. After three decades abroad, Lange uses the 1,400-kilometer-long Green Belt as a prism to investigate the human, social, and ecological stories surrounding the former borderland. Using an anthropological and journalistic approach, Lange presents multifaceted perspectives on life along the border, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the societal echoes of the German division and the process of Reunification. Pivoting to the present, the book addresses questions of migration, identity, and belonging in light of the proliferation of militarized borders today. Lange concludes by pointing to the glimpse the Green Belt offers into much older landscapes for clues about the ecological dimension of home.