Ken Follett’s extraordinary historical epic, the Century Trilogy, reaches its sweeping, passionate conclusion.In Fall of Giants and Winter of the World, Ken Follett followed the fortunes of five international families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—as they made their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the … of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements, and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution—and rock and roll.
East German teacher Rebecca Hoffmann discovers she’s been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for the rest of their lives. . . . George Jakes, the child of a mixed-race couple, bypasses a corporate law career to join Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department and finds himself in the middle of not only the seminal events of the civil rights battle but a much more personal battle of his own. . . . Cameron Dewar, the grandson of a senator, jumps at the chance to do some official and unofficial espionage for a cause he believes in, only to discover that the world is a much more dangerous place than he’d imagined. . . . Dimka Dvorkin, a young aide to Nikita Khrushchev, becomes an agent both for good and for ill as the United States and the Soviet Union race to the brink of nuclear war, while his twin sister, Tanya, carves out a role that will take her from Moscow to Cuba to Prague to Warsaw—and into history.
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A trilogy resolution. Wonderful characters.
I read all three novels in The Century Trilogy, this one being the 3rd. What is different about these three historical novels is the angle: events are primarily seen from the politics. Characters move in and out, connect, disconnect, grow older & have children who then connect, all throughout the 20th century and its three wars (World War I and II and the Cold War). Characterization is not too deep but realistic; though for my tastes, it seems as if animal attraction-sex plays a rather large part of the various characters’ lives. (The same is true for another Follett historical novel, A Dangerous Fortune.) — Follett’s narrative made these decades come alive for me and had me either crying with victims or rejoicing with characters’ successes. In some instances, he uses historical figures and in others, he uses his characters to be replacements in similar historical events.
If you like learning history or making history human, you will love this trilogy!
One of my all time favorite authors. I haven’t read anything by this author I didn’t enjoy, however, this but was exceptionally well written and researched. Informative and entertaining!
Loved the entire trilogy. Ken Follett writes book you can’t put down.
I love the series this is a part of. I learned a lot from this book. I know it is fiction, but it is fiction based on facts. He has done a ton of research.
This was not my favorite book in the Century Series. It was well written, but some of the characters did not give me warm fuzzies. I lived these times and cannot recognize some of the details. Socialism and Communism were truly terrible institutions, but we’re not depicted as the evils they are. Our struggles to fix problems in America were not given the depth of investigation they deserved.
Still a great read and I highly recommend it!
A good way to get a gist of history.
The first 2 books in this trilogy were very good. Not this one. For some reason Follett decided to inject his political biases.
awesome story teller
I have always enjoyed this author’s books. However, to me, this was a difficult book to read, inasmuch as there were multiple story lines, interwoven throughout the story. Personally, I matured into an adult during the time period and events presented and, thus, easily identified many of the various locations/events, described in it; to me, it became a presentation of historical events, from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, which the author encapsulated, within the contents. The problem I had, with the book, is that I checked it out from the library on two separate occasions and, still, could not finish it.
Interesting families and lots of history
This was the hardest of the trilogy to follow at times.
Ken Follett is always superb.
History along with unforgettable characters
I enjoyed every page of it and was sorry to see it end.
I loved this depiction of some defining moments in our nation’s history! Once again, Follett weaves a story that is exciting and interesting. I couldn’t wait to get back to reading it at the end of the day!!
I liked this series. This last book of the series I liked the least.
Ken Follett is my new favorite author. Nice long book, great characters, intertwining stories.
Used to love Follett but his last books have not been as wonderful as his older ones.
Anything written by this author is always well done, very readable.