Makes life under dictatorships more real.
Good historical novel covering the rise and fall of Hitler and Stalin, to 1949.
Well connected to actual history, covering England & Wales, USA, Russia, Germany and Spanish civil war. The sexism and racism is less than you might expect from a white man of the era and some can be considered a deliberate depiction of how things were. There is still a good attempt at showing how some strong women influenced events and a few vignettes of one black woman's life.
Very easy reading but a nice complement to the more personal aspects of the sweep of history during a terrifying period.
See my previous review of the previous book in the Century trilogy, covering WWI. Next volume starts when history ends for me and becomes real life.