lrmsreads 's review for:

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

4.0

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I just finished reading Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. And, wow, I really had no idea what WWI was about. WWII overshadowed it so significantly in my education that other than knowing it happened, I had no idea what it was about. And based on this book, it was pretty much about...nothing. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Serbia and Austria took the opportunity to attack Russia. And, Germany took the opportunity while on the side of Austria, to try to gain territory in France and Russia. Then, France, Britain and ultimately the United States teamed up to fight them off. All of this lead to the Russian Revolution and Lenin taking over Russia. And, at the same time, women in Britain were fighting for the right to vote. This book was very interesting and had some really great characters. Billy Williams went to war and became a leader and took what he learned to join the Labour Party. His sister, Ethel used her pregnancy by an Earl to better her station in life and work on the women's suffrage movement. Grigori Peshkov used his missed opportunity to go to America to become one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution. Gus Dewar worked to help Woodrow Wilson foster an armistice. I look forward to the next two books in the trilogy.