The Winds of War

A grand historical melodrama that views the Second World war through the eyes of an American family; the first volume begins in mid-1939 and ends with the US poised on the brink of Pearl Harbor, the second takes them to the war’s end. Through various plot devices and intermarriage Wouk manages to encapsulate the major themes of the war—the aero-naval combat in the Pacific, the critical role of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and the unfolding holocaust of European Jewry—into the experiences of his central characters. The novels were made into a pair of hugely successful television mini-series in 1983 and 1988.