The workings behind the scenes of the cold War and Russian politics, what it was like to be black in the USA during the Martin Luther King, the Kennedy assassination and many more. In East Germany, teacher Rebecca Hoffmann finds her entire life has been a lie as she is targeted by the secret police, even as her younger brother, Walli, dreams of escape across the Berlin Wall to Britain. wherever there was cruel oppression, … there had to be many nice ordinary people … who looked away from the grisly truth”!

It is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth and is set around the year 1,000, when Kingsbridge was an Anglo-Saxon settlement threatened by Viking invaders.

He had a good job—not many people had a car of their own in East Germany—and men who worked in the government were usually hardline Communists, but Hans, surprisingly, shared Rebecca’s political skepticism.

I recently finished reading Ken Follett’s epic novel, “The Edge of Eternity,” which spans almost 1,100 pages. Maybe as a standalone version it would have been better received, but as the third of what had been a superb trilogy I was let down. Edge of Eternity is the sweeping, passionate conclusion to Ken Follett’s extraordinary historical epic, The Century Trilogy. He turned to speak to Rebecca, but the elevator doors closed and she pressed the button for the ground floor.East German teacher Rebecca Hoffman discovers she's been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for generations. The hatred, the bigotry and the self-centered ugliness of the Republican right is portrayed absolutely mercilessly.

With the Viet Nam war, Kennedy's, Hippie movement, rock music, the USSR and so much else that happened post WWII to the present. Dave Williams, the son of Lloyd Williams and Daisy Peshkov and grandson of Earl Fitzherbert; first cousin of George and second cousin of Walli, a dyslexic young musician who become an international rock star and music producer. Different branches of a family, in the USA, UK, East Germany and the Soviet Union experience major events of the 1960s to 1980s such as the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, and for those in the USA, the civil rights movement and Vietnam war, and the end of communism in Eastern Europe. It starts off very strongly and I had hoped it would be as enjoyable at the first two, but the enjoyment I got from the middle and end portions of the book came more from Follett's obvious bias and the reverse-Jamie Lannister character arcs of the POV characters.

Most of the novel, perhaps even too much, focuses on the 1960s: love, war, drugs, rock 'n roll, political leaders in the US and abroad. They had been saying good-bye, and wishing one another a happy Christmas, and he had lightly grasped her arm, and bent his head, and kissed her lips. In this climactic and concluding saga, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again. But it was the next expression that struck her hardest: his cheeks darkened with shame and his eyes shifted away from her in an unmistakable look of guilt. Ken’s ability to continue the families stories is amazing and he brings the memories of the past series in this final book.

When I started reading the book, I was worried that it would be the usual nonsense of painting one side black and the other white. A lot of people are complaining about the end of the book, where the civil rights activists, who have been working their whole lives to help people of color gain equal rights, are excited that Obama became president.In doing so, Follett covers almost all of the major historical events between 1961 and 2008, the termination of the novel. He’s masterly at juggling complex plot lines with a mix of real world leaders and fictional characters who are spread throughout Eastern and Western Europe and the United States.