Editing Ken Follett (section)

=== Century trilogy ===

Follett's novels, ''[[Fall of Giants]]'', ''[[Winter of the World]]'' and ''[[Edge of Eternity (novel)|Edge of Eternity]]'', make up the Century Trilogy. ''Fall of Giants'' (2010) followed the fates of five interrelated families – Welsh, American, German, Russian and English – as they moved through the world-shaking dramas of the [[First World War]], the [[Russian Revolution]] and the struggle for women's [[suffrage]]. ''Fall of Giants'', published simultaneously in 14 countries, was internationally popular and topped several best-seller lists.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ken-follett.com/downloads/biography/Ken_Follett_biography_en_1209.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2013-12-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130202174553/http://ken-follett.com/downloads/biography/Ken_Follett_biography_en_1209.pdf |archive-date=2 February 2013}}</ref>

''Winter of the World'' (2012) picks up where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of [[Nazi Germany]], through the [[Spanish Civil War]] and the great dramas of World War II, to the explosions of the American and Soviet atom bombs and the beginning of the long Cold War.

The final novel in the 'Century' trilogy, ''Edge of Eternity'', which follows those families through the events of the second half of the 20th century, was published on 16 September 2014. Like the previous two books, it chronicles the lives of five families through the Cold War and civil-rights movements.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://svetlanalasrado.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/follett-tweaks-beststeller-formula/ |title=Follett tweaks beststeller formula |last=svetlanalasrado |date=23 September 2014 }}</ref>

A major element of the first two volumes, ''Fall of Giants'' and ''Winter of the World'', is the increasing political assertiveness of the British working class and the rise of the [[British Labour Party]] – exemplified by the Williams Family, Welsh coal miners, of which several viewpoint characters end up as Members of the British Parliament and one of them becomes a cabinet minister in [[Clement Attlee]]'s post-WWII Labour government. However, the theme of British politics is nearly absent from the third part ''Edge of Eternity'', which concentrates on the Cold War on the one hand and the US Civil Rights Movement on the other; for example, though the novel continues until 1989, it makes no reference at all to the rise of [[Margaret Thatcher]] in 1979.