The memorial landscape which emerged in Berlin after 1989 has been widely observed by the national and international public as well as by scholars from various disciplines. The reason is obvious: After 1990, German society had to develop a new identity, that of the "Berliner Republik." Because memorials have an important impact on the so-called Funktionsgedächtnis (Assmann 1999; i.e., the part of collective memory that shapes the identity of a society), the urban environment of Berlin was both a motor and a product of the formation of this new identity. In their respective books, Jennifer Jordan and Karen Till examine the preconditions and forces that have produced the urban memorial landscape in Berlin.The central question of Jennifer Jordan's book Structures of Memory is why "some sites are ensconced in official collective memory, while others fade into the landscape" (p. 1). She also explores how this relates to the development of a rapidly changing urban environment, which is structured by various heterogeneous public and private interests and legal institutions. Jordan aims to understand how the visible landscapes of memory shaping collective memory come into being. Moreover, she seeks to track the "structures of memory" that might be at work also at other sites that are haunted by their pasts, such as the World Trade Center site, the Oklahoma City bombing site, or Phnom Penh in Cambodia.To answer these questions Jordan looks at the memorial landscape of post-1989 East Berlin. Not only are there multiple layers of German history embodied in the urban structure, but also radical political, economic, social, and spatial changes took place in the urban environment over the last several hundred years. As such, Jordan narrows her investigation to the specific traces of National Socialism.Jordan's investigation is situated at the crossing of urban sociology, cultural studies, history, and urban planning. She applies a qualitative and a historical approach, using archival research, analysis of secondary sources in German language, and interviews with key players such as civil society actors, journalists, planners and architects, and politicians, as well as state officials from various public authorities.