Book Review: The Century Trilogy: Captures the 20th Century

I have set myself the challenge to read 52 books for 2022 or 1 book per week for the entire year. Will be interesting to see if I make it but I am well on my way!
The last book I finished was part three of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follet, which all three impressed me.

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The Trilogy

Those of you that are familiar with Ken Follet know he writes about historical topics and this trilogy is no exception! The focal point of this trilogy is the 20th century. What Follet always does magnificently is focus on normal people in big histories, giving you a real feel for what it must have been like to live during that time. He does the same in the trilogy and because he follows characters in different countries as well, you get an even more balance picture.

Book 1: The Fall Of Giants

The first book is arguably the best one, so even if you read only one book of the trilogy (they can all be read separately) I would recommend reading this one! In this book the road to and the time during World War I are covered.

Follet follows the history of families from Wales, England, Germany, America and Russia. I like the scope because it means he also covers the Russian revolution, the start of the labour party in England and the effect of losing the war in Germany.

Book Two: Winter of the World

In book two we meet a new generation of personalities, but we stay within the same families. After WW I covered in the first book, we now are going into the rising tensions of the 1930's and World War II. Now it becomes even more interesting with one of our families being German and it is interesting to see how Follet navigates the sensitivities around that topic. He has also smartly integrated some of the families in the books with each other, so it seems less like different chapters and more like one story. Books about WW II will always fascinate me I think, but Follet has done a really good job here.

Book 3: Edge of Eternity

I have literally just put this book down yesterday, so still very fresh. The final book of the trilogy looks mostly at the Cold War, mounting tensions between East and West. It also puts quite a lot of focus on the Kennedy years, which is very interesting. You will also find the crumbling Soviet Union and the Vietnam war in there. The downside of this last book is that some characters really lose credibility, multiple of them become famous which to be fair is very unlikely to happen in anyone's lifetime... He also has difficulty creating likeable Republican characters in the US, which I feel should not be that hard!

Review

In all I would recommend you to read the Trilogy, they are all quite lengthy books but don't be discouraged, it reads really quick! The best book is the first and the last book is the least so you can always choose at every book if you still want to continue.

I look forward to hearing what you are reading!