The Century Trilogy is Ken Follett‘s most ambitious work: three enormous novels that follow five interconnected families through the whole of the 20th century. It begins in a Welsh coal town on the day of King George V’s coronation in 1911 and ends with crowds tearing down the Berlin Wall in 1989. In between came two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, the Cold War, and the American civil rights movement.
The families come from Wales, England, the United States, Germany, and Russia, and their lives cross again and again: miners and aristocrats, diplomats and revolutionaries, spies and activists. Across more than 3,000 pages, the children of one book become the parents of the next.
This guide gives you the reading order, a spoiler-free guide to each book, advice on how to tackle a trilogy this long, and what to read when you finish.
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Quick Series Facts
| Author | Ken Follett |
| Number of books | 3 (complete) |
| First book | Fall of Giants (2010) |
| Last book | Edge of Eternity (2014) |
| Setting | Wales, England, USA, Germany and Russia, 1911 to 1989 |
| Length | More than 3,000 pages in total |
| Genre | Historical fiction, family saga |
| TV adaptation | Fall of Giants in development with Peacock |
Century Trilogy Books in Order
Publication order and chronological order are the same for the Century Trilogy, so there is only one way to read it: start with Fall of Giants and finish with Edge of Eternity. Each book covers a new era and, broadly, a new generation of the five families.
1. Fall of Giants (2010)
Setting: 1911 to 1924, the First World War and the Russian Revolution
The trilogy opens in 1911 in Aberowen, a Welsh mining town, where thirteen-year-old Billy Williams goes down the pit for the first time. His sister Ethel works as a housekeeper at Tŷ Gwyn, the grand house of the Earl Fitzherbert, whose headstrong sister Lady Maud is drawn to a young German diplomat, Walter von Ulrich.
In Washington, Gus Dewar finds himself working for President Woodrow Wilson. In St Petersburg, two orphaned brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, dream of escaping to America. When war came in 1914, all of their lives were pulled into it, from the trenches of the Western Front to the streets of revolutionary Petrograd and the peace talks at Versailles.
Fall of Giants is the most sweeping of the three books, moving between the coal face, the country house, the White House and the Winter Palace. It is also the book where you meet most of the families for the first time, so give yourself a few chapters to settle in.
Major events: the First World War, the Russian Revolution, women’s suffrage, the Treaty of Versailles
Key characters: Billy and Ethel Williams, Earl Fitzherbert and Lady Maud, Walter von Ulrich, Gus Dewar, Grigori and Lev Peshkov
Why read it: Fall of Giants is Follett at his most panoramic. The opening chapters in Aberowen, with the mine, the chapel, and the big house on the hill, are some of the best scene-setting he has written, and the war chapters capture both the idealism of 1914 and the horror that followed. If you enjoy this book, you will enjoy the whole trilogy.
2. Winter of the World (2012)
Setting: 1933 to 1949, the rise of fascism and the Second World War
The second book opens in Berlin in 1933, as Hitler takes power, and hands the story to the next generation. Carla von Ulrich, the daughter of Maud and Walter, grows up in a family that is half German and half English at the worst possible time to be either.
In London, Ethel’s son Lloyd Williams is drawn into the fight against fascism, first in the East End and then in the Spanish Civil War. The American heiress Daisy Peshkov, Lev’s daughter, arrives in England with her sights set on high society and the Fitzherberts. In Moscow, Volodya Peshkov joins Soviet military intelligence, and in the United States, the Dewar brothers, Woody and Chuck, are heading towards Pearl Harbor.
Winter of the World takes its characters through the Blitz, the Eastern Front, the war in the Pacific, and the subsequent division of Europe. Many readers find it the most gripping and emotionally powerful of the three.
Major events: the Nazi seizure of power, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the atomic bomb, and the start of the Cold War
Key characters: Carla von Ulrich, Lloyd Williams, Daisy Peshkov, Volodya Peshkov, Woody, and Chuck Dewar
Why read it: Winter of the World is the darkest and most urgent book of the three. The chapters in Nazi Berlin, where ordinary families have to decide how much they are willing to risk, are especially powerful, and the book covers an extraordinary range of the war, from Madrid to Moscow to Midway.
For more novels set in these years, see our WW2 time period guide and our list of the best WWII historical fiction.
3. Edge of Eternity (2014)
Setting: 1961 to 1989, the Cold War
The final book follows the third generation through the Cold War. In East Berlin, Rebecca Hoffmann, a schoolteacher in Carla’s family, discovers that the Stasi has been watching her. In the United States, George Jakes, a young lawyer of mixed heritage, joins Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department and the fight for civil rights. In Moscow, Dimka Dvorkin becomes an aide to Nikita Khrushchev, while his twin sister Tanya becomes a journalist with dangerous friends.
The book moves from the building of the Berlin Wall to the Freedom Rides, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, the Prague Spring, Watergate, and the long, slow crumbling of the Soviet bloc, and closes the trilogy in 1989.
Major events: the Berlin Wall, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, Watergate, and the end of the Cold War
Key characters: Rebecca Hoffmann, George Jakes, Dimka, Tanya Dvorkin, and Cameron Dewar
Why read it: Edge of Eternity is the longest book and the one that feels closest to our own world. Its American civil rights storyline is among the most moving in the trilogy, and the Cold War chapters, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the final years of the Soviet bloc, are tense and gripping. It also brings the family’s story full circle.
The Five Families
Keeping track of the families is the main challenge of the trilogy. This is who you will meet in Fall of Giants, without giving away where their stories go.
| Family | Country | Starting point |
|---|---|---|
| Williams | Wales | A mining family in Aberowen: Billy, his sister Ethel, and their chapel-going, union-minded father |
| Fitzherbert | England | Earl Fitzherbert, owner of the mines and of Tŷ Gwyn, and his sister Lady Maud |
| von Ulrich | Germany | Walter von Ulrich, a German diplomat in London |
| Peshkov | Russia, later USA | Two orphaned brothers, Grigori and Lev, in St Petersburg |
| Dewar | USA | Gus Dewar, son of a senator, who joins President Wilson’s staff |
Each book includes family trees at the front. Use them, especially in Edge of Eternity, where the grandchildren of the first book’s characters take over.
Century Trilogy Timeline
A quick guide to where the big events fall across the three books.
| Year | Event | Book |
|---|---|---|
| 1911 | Coronation of George V | Fall of Giants |
| 1914 to 1918 | The First World War | Fall of Giants |
| 1917 | The Russian Revolution | Fall of Giants |
| 1919 | The Paris Peace Conference | Fall of Giants |
| 1933 | Hitler takes power | Winter of the World |
| 1936 to 1939 | The Spanish Civil War | Winter of the World |
| 1939 to 1945 | The Second World War | Winter of the World |
| 1961 | The Berlin Wall goes up | Edge of Eternity |
| 1962 | The Cuban Missile Crisis | Edge of Eternity |
| 1960s | The civil rights movement | Edge of Eternity |
| 1968 | The Prague Spring | Edge of Eternity |
| 1989 | The Berlin Wall falls | Edge of Eternity |
The Settings
Aberowen, Wales. The fictional mining town where the trilogy begins is modeled on the coal towns of the South Wales valleys. Follett, who was born in Cardiff, gives it a vivid sense of community: the pit, the chapel, the union and the grand house above it all.
London. From aristocratic drawing rooms to the East End and Westminster, London is the trilogy’s British center of power.
Berlin. The von Ulrich family’s city, seen through the Kaiser’s empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi rule, the ruins of 1945, and the divided city of the Cold War. Few places in fiction show the century’s changes so starkly.
St Petersburg, Petrograd, and Moscow. The Peshkov and Dvorkin storylines follow Russia from the factories of the Tsar’s capital to the heart of Soviet power.
Washington. The Dewar family keeps the trilogy close to American power, from Woodrow Wilson’s White House to the Kennedy administration.
Century Trilogy Audiobooks
All three books are available as audiobooks, and they are long: the US edition of Fall of Giants, narrated by John Lee, runs to about 30 hours, and the other two are similar in length. They are a good way to tackle the trilogy if the page count feels daunting, and the Welsh, Russian, and German storylines benefit from hearing the names spoken aloud.
Real History in the Century Trilogy
One of the pleasures of the trilogy is watching Follett’s fictional families brush against the real people who shaped the century. Among the historical figures who appear:
- Fall of Giants: King George V, Winston Churchill, President Woodrow Wilson, and Lenin
- Winter of the World: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, with Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union looming over every chapter
- Edge of Eternity: John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nikita Khrushchev
Follett uses real figures sparingly. They usually appear at the edges of scenes, seen through the eyes of a fictional character who works for them, argues with them or simply watches them pass. That keeps the focus on the families while giving the history a real sense of presence.
Which Century Book Is Best?
Readers disagree, which is a good sign for the trilogy as a whole.
Fall of Giants is often the favourite of readers who love the opening of a big saga: the discovery of the families, the Edwardian world before 1914 and the shock of the war.
Winter of the World is the choice of many readers for its emotional power. The stakes of the Second World War give every storyline an edge, and several of the trilogy’s best characters come into their own here.
Edge of Eternity divides readers more. Some find it too crowded, with a lot of history packed into its pages. Others think it is the most gripping of the three, particularly its civil rights and Cold War storylines.
Our advice is simple: read all three in order. The payoff of Edge of Eternity depends on the two books before it.
Century Trilogy vs Kingsbridge
Ken Follett’s two great sagas are often compared. Here is how they differ.
| Century Trilogy | Kingsbridge | |
|---|---|---|
| Period | 1911 to 1989 | 997 to the 1820s |
| Setting | Five countries | One English town |
| Books | 3 | 5 |
| Structure | One continuous story across three generations | Linked but standalone novels, centuries apart |
| Focus | War, revolution and politics | Building, faith, trade and power |
| Start with | Fall of Giants | The Pillars of the Earth |
If you want one story that runs straight through, choose the Century Trilogy. If you want books you can read in any order, choose Kingsbridge. Most Follett fans end up reading both.
Who Should Read the Century Trilogy?
The trilogy is a great fit if you enjoy:
- Big family sagas with a large cast and many storylines
- 20th-century history, especially the two world wars and the Cold War
- Page-turning plots more than literary experiment
- Seeing history from several countries and several sides at once
It may not suit you if you prefer tightly focused novels with a single narrator or are looking for something short. The books contain war violence, historical atrocities, and some sexual content, so they are best suited to adult and older teenage readers.
About the Century Trilogy
A Century Seen from the Ground
The Century Trilogy tells the story of the 20th century through the people who lived it rather than the people who ran it. Presidents, dictators, and generals appear, and Follett puts his characters in the room with Winston Churchill, Lenin, Roosevelt, Khrushchev, and the Kennedys. But the heart of each book is the miner, the housekeeper, the teacher, the soldier, and the activist, and the choices they make when history arrives at their door.
Follett moves between the families constantly. A single chapter might cut from a Welsh pit to the German embassy to the Russian front. That can feel busy at first, but it builds into something powerful: you see the same events from every side, and you understand how a decision in one capital changes lives in another.
Themes
Class. The trilogy begins with the gulf between the Williamses and the Fitzherberts, the miners and the family that owns the mine, and much of the story is about how that gulf narrows over the century.
Women’s rights. From the suffrage campaigners of Fall of Giants to the working women of the 1960s, the fight for equality runs through all three books.
Tyranny and conscience. Communism and fascism both loom over the trilogy, and many characters must decide how much they will risk to resist them.
Love across divides. Some of the most memorable relationships in the trilogy cross lines of class, nation, and politics, and the century makes each of them harder.
What Makes It Special
- Scope: nearly eighty years, five countries, and almost every major event of the century
- Continuity: following three generations of the same families builds real emotional investment
- Clarity: Follett makes complicated politics easy to follow through character and plot
- Pace: despite their size, these are page-turners, with short scenes and constant cliffhangers
- Research: the historical framework is careful, with real people and events woven around the fictional families
Where to Start
Start with Fall of Giants. The trilogy is a continuous story, and each book builds on the characters, relationships, and events of the previous one. Starting with Winter of the World or Edge of Eternity would mean missing the introductions to the families and spoiling much of the first book.
If you are new to Ken Follett altogether, you could also warm up with The Pillars of the Earth, the first Kingsbridge novel and his most famous book. It shows the same gift for big, multi-character storytelling on a smaller canvas.
How Long Is the Century Trilogy?
This is a big commitment. In the common hardback editions, the three books run to roughly:
- Fall of Giants: about 985 pages
- Winter of the World: about 940 pages
- Edge of Eternity: about 1,100 pages
Page counts vary by edition. Most readers take several weeks per book, and the audiobooks run to around 30 hours or more each. The good news is that Follett writes in short scenes that make long books move quickly, and each book works as a complete story in its own right, so you can take a break between them.
Reading Tips
Use the family trees. They are at the front of each book, and they save a lot of flicking back.
Do not panic in the first hundred pages. Fall of Giants introduces many people quickly. The main characters become clear soon enough.
Watch the dates. Follett marks the passing years clearly. They help you place each chapter in the wider history.
Take breaks between books. Each volume ends at a natural stopping point, and there is a jump of several years between them.
About Ken Follett
Ken Follett was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1949 and worked as a journalist before his breakthrough thriller Eye of the Needle (1978). His books have sold more than 198 million copies worldwide.
He built his early career on wartime thrillers, then changed direction in 1989 with The Pillars of the Earth, a novel about the building of a medieval cathedral that became a global phenomenon and launched the Kingsbridge series. The Century Trilogy, published between 2010 and 2014, was his next great project. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, Barbara Follett, a former Member of Parliament.
His most recent novel is Circle of Days (2025), a story about the building of Stonehenge.
More by Ken Follett
The Kingsbridge series follows one English town from the Dark Ages to the 17th century. See our Kingsbridge series reading order.
- The Evening and the Morning (2020)
- The Pillars of the Earth (1989)
- World Without End (2007)
- A Column of Fire (2017)
- The Armour of Light (2023)
Second World War thrillers: Eye of the Needle, Night Over Water, Hornet Flight and Jackdaws are fast, tense standalones that make a good bridge from Winter of the World.
Recent standalones: Never (2021), a present-day thriller about a slide towards nuclear war, and Circle of Days (2025).
For his complete bibliography, see our Ken Follett guide.
The 20th Century in Brief
The Century Trilogy covers the most violent and transformative century in human history. A quick map helps.
The First World War (1914 to 1918) destroyed the old European order and four empires, and killed millions in industrial warfare. The Russian Revolution (1917) created the world’s first communist state. See our WW1 time period guide for more novels set in these years.
The interwar years (1918 to 1939) brought votes for women in many countries, the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. The Spanish Civil War became a rehearsal for the wider war to come.
The Second World War (1939 to 1945) was deadlier still, with tens of millions of dead, the Holocaust, and the atomic bombs that opened the nuclear age.
The Cold War (1947 to 1991) divided the world between the Soviet bloc and the West, under the constant threat of nuclear war, while the civil rights movement transformed the United States and colonial empires fell across Africa and Asia.
Follett’s gift is to show how these great forces reached into ordinary homes: who went to war, who lost their job, who was arrested, who fell in love with the wrong person.
Similar Series You Will Love
The Poldark Series by Winston Graham
Twelve novels following the Poldark family in Cornwall from the 1780s into the 1820s. Like the Century Trilogy, it spans generations and blends romance, class conflict, and real history on a more local scale.
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
The classic English family saga, following the wealthy Forsytes from the 1880s into the 1920s. Galsworthy’s Nobel Prize citation singled it out, and it shares Follett’s fascination with how families change as society changes around them.
The Asian Saga by James Clavell
Six huge novels spanning Japan, Hong Kong and Iran from 1600 to 1979, loosely linked by recurring families and companies. Another epic, international, multi-generational project for readers who love scale.
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
A very different era, the birth of England in the Viking age, but the same talent for making history personal, and thirteen books to lose yourself in.
The Kingsbridge Series by Ken Follett
The obvious next step. Follett’s other great saga follows one English town across six centuries.
For more epic sagas, see our best historical fiction series.
Adaptations
A television adaptation of Fall of Giants has been in the works for more than a decade. In 2014, ABC announced plans for a limited series. The project stalled, and in February 2023, it was revived at Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service, with Carnival Films producing and the novelist William Boyd writing the adaptation.
At the time of writing, no cast or release date has been announced. The plan has always been to start with Fall of Giants, and a trilogy this large, with its five countries and dozens of characters, would be one of the most ambitious period dramas ever made.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books are in the Century Trilogy?
There are three books in the Century Trilogy: Fall of Giants (2010), Winter of the World (2012), and Edge of Eternity (2014). The series is complete.
What order should I read the Century Trilogy in?
Read the Century Trilogy in publication order: Fall of Giants, then Winter of the World, then Edge of Eternity. Publication order and chronological order are the same, and each book builds on the characters and events of the one before.
Can I read the Century Trilogy books as standalones?
Each book tells a complete story about its era, but the characters and families carry across all three. You will get much more from Winter of the World and Edge of Eternity if you have read Fall of Giants first.
What is the Century Trilogy about?
The Century Trilogy follows five interconnected families from Wales, England, the United States, Germany, and Russia through the 20th century, from 1911 to 1989. It covers the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement.
How long is the Century Trilogy?
The three books total more than 3,000 pages. Fall of Giants runs to about 985 pages, Winter of the World about 940, and Edge of Eternity about 1,100, depending on the edition.
Is the Century Trilogy historically accurate?
The families are fictional, but they live through carefully researched real events and meet real historical figures, including Churchill, Lenin, Roosevelt, Khrushchev, and the Kennedys. Follett keeps closely to the historical record for the major events.
Do I need to read the Kingsbridge series first?
No. The Century Trilogy and the Kingsbridge series are completely separate, with no shared characters, so you can read them in any order.
Will there be a fourth Century book?
No. The trilogy is complete, ending in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Ken Follett has not announced any plans to continue it.
Is there a Century Trilogy TV series?
Not yet. A television adaptation of Fall of Giants has been in development for years, most recently at Peacock with William Boyd writing, but no release date has been announced.
Start Your Journey Through the Century
The Century Trilogy is one of the great reading projects in historical fiction. Over three books, Ken Follett turns the most turbulent century in history into a single story about families you come to care about, from a Welsh coal town in 1911 to the Berlin Wall in 1989.
It takes a lot of time, but it gives a great deal back: an understanding of how the modern world was made, and characters who stay with you long after the last page. Start with Fall of Giants, keep the family tree close, and let the century carry you.