I have read all three books in Ken Follett's "Century Trilogy", the most recent being "Edge of Eternity". These books are not typically what I seek out, but I thoroughly enjoyed all three of them.
I "accidentally" ran across Follett's "Pillars of the Earth" series, as I had known Follett from his WWII spy novels. That was the first historical fiction-type book I ran across and I found it difficult to put down.
The Century Trilogy runs the gamut from the Russian Civil war () to WWII to the 1960's. In each era, there are family members in several key countries, so their is a link backward through time (or forward, depending upon which book you are looking from), but the stories are independent, and no requirement to be up to date on each book is necessary to enjoy the others.
The "Edge of Eternity" is the most recent book in both publication and historical period. The key storylines are East Germany during the building of the Wall, Kennedy's White House and Kruschev's Kremlin during the Cuban missile crisis, the civil rights activities in both Washington and Alabama and the Vietnam war.
Follett's strengths is to portray the issues from the perspectives of both sides of the conflict(s), reminding the reader of what they would have known at that point in time and what their motivations were. The issues come alive, almost as if they are being relived and maintain an appropriate sense of urgency. As a novel, it is excellent, though I suppose as a true history it does slant in the Western direction (e.g. the Wall is evil, Communism is flawed... the hardline East German police are portrayed as thugs - I don't disagree, but I suspect there is a viewpoint from that era that they were heroically protecting the motherland).
All in all, a captivating series, really worth the time to read.
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