The Winds of War

By Herman Wouk

Categories: History, Literature & Fiction

The Winds of War (1971) is Herman Wouk's novel of the years before American entry into the Second World War. It begins in 1939, when U.S. Navy commander Victor 'Pug' Henry is posted to Berlin as naval attaché. Pug's prediction of the Nazi-Soviet pact brings him to Roosevelt's attention, and he becomes the president's informal envoy, meeting Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini and Stalin. Meanwhile his wife and three grown children are swept up in the war, up to Pearl Harbor.

Recommended by 1 person

• Scott Galloway: “I read my first kind of real novel when I was in high school and it's not that dramatic. I read a book by Herman Wook called the “Winds of War.” ... it just sort of got me thinking about things I had never thought about and sort of changed, got me interested in history, got me interested in war history.”