reviewed by Brian Lowen on recorded show for 19th Sept 2013
This book is a
real saga – not to be attempted unless you are prepared to concentrate, as the
story involves several families, set in various countries – Russia, Germany,
Spain, USA, England and Wales – all variously intertwined.
This is the second
book in the trilogy – the Century, and it does help to read the first book
first as the families continue in this book with their descendants.
The story is set
in the period 1933 to 1949, leading up to , and including , the second world
war and is historically very interesting, ie the politics involved in the
Spanish civil war and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. He actually did a lot
of good for the country in a brutal way before his lust for greater power
overwhelmed him. It is easy to understand how some politicians in other countries
admired him. But Moseley’s fascists in Britain never managed to succeed as the
Nazis did.
The story is too
involved to précis, but you can keep flipping back to the beginning of the book
to check the cast list given there, although this is not so easy if reading the
book on a kindle.
was probably
Hitler’s revenge for the RAF bombing Berlin because he had declared that NO
British bombers would ever be able to reach Berlin. One of the other families
get involved in the Nazi practice of killing off all disabled children and
adults to save money looking after them – Jewish children receiving priority of
course.
Stalin refused to
believe that Hitler would invade Russia until he had defeated Britain, despite
intelligence reports to the contrary, so when Germany did invade they were
wholly unprepared and the German army swept through Russia as far as the
outskirts of Moscow, before the Russian winter saved them again.
Other events
featured in the story include Pearl Harbour and the last days of the war in
Berlin. The politics after the war finished and the Berlin airlift, the
Marshall plan and how Russia got its own nuclear bomb
No comments:
Post a Comment