Editors Reads Verdict
Fall of Giants is popular history at its most accomplished — a vast, intelligent, and compulsively readable novel that makes the catastrophes of the early twentieth century feel not like fate but like a series of choices made by specific people who could have chosen differently.
What We Loved
- Showing World War One from inside five different national experiences simultaneously is Follett's most formally sophisticated structural achievement
- The Russian Revolution sections are the novel's most electrifying — Petrograd in 1917 is vivid, specific, and unsparing
- The interplay of perspectives makes the war's causes, conduct, and consequences emerge with unusual clarity without feeling relativistic
- At nearly 1000 pages, the investment pays compound interest across all three Century Trilogy volumes
Minor Drawbacks
- The sheer scale means some characters receive less depth than others — the American Dewar brothers are noticeably thinner than the Welsh and Russian threads
- Follett's romantic subplots are functional rather than distinguished — the emotional weight comes from history, not from the love stories
- The pace of the opening Welsh sections can feel slow before the war's machinery begins to turn
Key Takeaways
- → World War One was the product of specific human decisions, not impersonal historical forces — people could have chosen differently at multiple junctures
- → The Russian Revolution looked entirely different depending on whether you were an aristocrat, an idealist, or a pragmatist — and all three perspectives were simultaneously true
- → Class systems sustained by force rather than merit collapse when the force is withdrawn or defeated
- → The working class experienced the war as a betrayal of promises made by a ruling class that exempted itself from the consequences
- → Historical fiction at its best makes catastrophe feel human-scaled — not fate but the sum of choices made by people who could have been otherwise
| Author | Ken Follett |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Dutton |
| Pages | 985 |
| Published | September 28, 2010 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical Fiction, Epic Fiction, War Fiction |
Five Families, One Century
Follett’s most ambitious novel opens in a Welsh coal mine in 1911, where thirteen-year-old Billy Williams descends for his first shift. By the time Fall of Giants ends, in 1924, Billy will have survived the Somme, witnessed the Russian Revolution, and returned to Wales to find that everything the old world promised working men has been broken and not yet replaced.
The Welsh mining family is one of five whose lives Follett traces across the convulsion of 1914–1924. The Fitzherberts are English aristocrats who believe the world is arranged for their benefit and will discover how comprehensively that world can end. The von Ulrichs are German cousins — one a diplomat, one a soldier — who support a war they understand will be decided against them. The Dewars are American brothers, one of whom will work in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. And the Peshkovs are Russian brothers separated by the Revolution, one joining the Bolsheviks, one fleeing to America.
The War as Mechanism
Follett’s structural decision — to show World War One from inside five different national experiences simultaneously — is his most formally sophisticated choice in a career of large formal ambitions. The readers see the same battles from both sides of the wire. They see the diplomatic failures that made the war inevitable as the product of specific human decisions rather than impersonal historical forces. They see how the war looked from Washington, where entering it was a political choice with domestic consequences.
The effect is not relativistic — Follett has clear views about where moral weight falls — but it is genuinely illuminating. The war’s causes, conduct, and consequences emerge with unusual clarity from the interplay of perspectives.
The Russian Revolution
The Russian sections are the novel’s most electrifying. Follett follows the February and October Revolutions through characters on multiple sides: the aristocrats who cannot believe it is happening, the idealists who believe they are building a new world, the pragmatists who understand that the new world will require the same instruments of power as the old. The depiction of Petrograd in 1917 is vivid and specific, and Follett does not flinch from the violence that accompanied liberation.
The Human Scale
At nearly a thousand pages, Fall of Giants requires commitment. What Follett provides in return is the conviction that history happened to specific people who felt it as personally as any contemporary reader would — who loved and argued and made catastrophic miscalculations and sometimes got things right. The intergenerational thread that will run through the full trilogy begins here, and the investment in these families earns interest across all three volumes.
Our rating: 4.4/5 — Follett’s most historically panoramic novel, delivering the cataclysm of World War One and the Russian Revolution through five families whose interconnected lives make the century’s defining catastrophe feel human-scaled and urgently real.
Reading Order
- Fall of Giants ← you are here
- Winter of the World
- Edge of Eternity
Reading Guides
- Books Like The Count of Monte Cristo: 11 Epic Adventure and Revenge Classics
- Books Like Outlander: 11 Epic Historical Romances You
- Books Like The Pillars of the Earth: 11 Epic Historical Novels You Won
- Books Like The Nightingale: 11 Powerful WWII Novels You Need to Read
- Ken Follett Books in Order: Kingsbridge and Century Series Guide (2026)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Fall of Giants" about?
Five families from England, Germany, Russia, America, and Wales are swept up in the cataclysm of World War One and the Russian Revolution. Follett's Century Trilogy opens with his most ambitious canvas yet — a panoramic story of the early twentieth century told through interconnected lives across five nations.
What are the key takeaways from "Fall of Giants"?
World War One was the product of specific human decisions, not impersonal historical forces — people could have chosen differently at multiple junctures The Russian Revolution looked entirely different depending on whether you were an aristocrat, an idealist, or a pragmatist — and all three perspectives were simultaneously true Class systems sustained by force rather than merit collapse when the force is withdrawn or defeated The working class experienced the war as a betrayal of promises made by a ruling class that exempted itself from the consequences Historical fiction at its best makes catastrophe feel human-scaled — not fate but the sum of choices made by people who could have been otherwise
Is "Fall of Giants" worth reading?
Fall of Giants is popular history at its most accomplished — a vast, intelligent, and compulsively readable novel that makes the catastrophes of the early twentieth century feel not like fate but like a series of choices made by specific people who could have chosen differently.
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