The Winds of War

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Twenty years after the publication of <i>The 'Caine' Mutiny</i>, Herman Wouk for the first time returns to World War II, with a novel even grander in scope. Conceived and executed on a monumental scale, <i>The Winds of War</i> is a deeply human story of the vicissitudes of two American families caught in the war's vortex, one Regular Navy, the other Jewish intellectual, and a British war correspondent and his daughter. Their intermingled fates dominate the action and produce a saga of love, ambition, loyalties and danger. Beginning with the off-stage thunder of Hitler's Germany in 1938, the action is concentrated on four pivotal battles: the siege of Warsaw, the Battle of Britain, the march on Moscow, and the attack on Pearl Harbour. Enriched by brillant evocation of the prevailing atmosphere and conditions, and fresh and lively portraits of war leaders, notably Hitler and Roosevelt, this magnificent novel produces in the reader, through the constant participation of one or more of the main characters in events, an eye-witness's tingling consciousness of having been there——of <i>this is how it was</i>. And, as a reminder that war has two sides, Herman Wouk offers, by means of a perfectly syncopated commentary by a German general, a sharp, if controversial picture of the German side. All this he has achieved with a perfect sense of timing and a superb orchestration of history and fiction.