By Leon Uris Armageddon A Novel Of Berlin (Book Club Edit) [Hardcover]

Armageddon is my favorite Leon Uris, unless I just reread Exodus. The book is the story of one of three brothers serving as soldiers during World War II, each in different capacities. Sean O'Sullivan's war is not one of glory and flying but of thinking and strategizing how the United States will occupy Germany after the War. After his brothers are killed by the Germans he finds it hard to do his job and begin the rebuilding of this enemy state. The story gradual turns to Berlin, the first front of the Cold War. The struggles of Sean O'Sullivan are set against the drama and escalation between the United States and the Soviet Union culminating in the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948 and the fledgling United States Air Force successful effort to supply Berlin by air. An air power buff will love this story of the logistics and planning it took to supply half of Berlin, by air, for almost a year. The intermingling of the facts of rebuilding Germany, the political fight for Berlin and its eventual division into East and West, and the Berlin Airlift with the story of Sean O'Sullivan and Ernestine a young German woman he comes to love create a potent story that you don't want to end despite the long pages.

When Friday night turns into Saturday, and you have been up all night to finish a book, but sorry that it came to an end, then you know that you have read a classic. That is how I feel about Armageddon by Leon Uris. It is set near the end of World War II in England and continues in Germany through the Berlin Airlift.The development of the characters is superb, their stories exciting. Nevertheless, I found some of the assumptions about Germans quite incredible, even a little absurd. Uris describes their love of the forest as an almost mystical Teutonic reverance, which I never observed despite living amongst Germans of all backgrounds, and having travelled extensively through their forests above several tons of tracked aluminum. Uris also describes Americans in a way that we would like to think of ourselves, which is, in a word, righteous. Unfortunately, if that ever existed during the Berlin Airlift, it is not in evidence today. But against the backdrop of the airlift which was America's most spectacular strategic, tactical and propaganda victory ever against communism, the characters from the pilots, to the Germans, to the leaders of all sides, come to life in realistic and dramatic fashion. Uris is a masterful storyteller, and this is entirely top notch writing. You cannot help but hope that the lives of his characters and their love triumph in the ordeal of rebuilding a nation from it's total collapse. This is one of those rare books that I can take from my shelf, turn to any page, and find in any one of them, the shear pleasure of reading.

Leon Uris totally hit his stride in writing this book--and many of his subsequent books picked up on the same kinds of characters and themes discussed and witnessed in ARMAGEDDON. -You have the Irish-American protagonist O'Sullivan who is given the duty to oversee American interests and policy in the newly defeated Germany - Uris's fascination with the Irish as a people would grow and become more apparent in such books as TRINITY, REDEMPTION, and A GOD IN RUINS. -You have the bookish professor Faulkenstein, a German who was imprisoned in a concentration camp and mentors O'Sullivan throughout the text-pick a character from MILA 18. -There is the beautiful German girl Ernestine who falls in love with O'Sullivan prompting him to question his beliefs about the German people after examining the events of the Holocaust-like Kitty in EXODUS and Shelly in TRINITY. -And then you have the Soviets and their impact on the rebuilding of Germany and *that* is what separates this book from the others I have mentioned. This was Uris' first attempt of writing a holistic story told from all sides and he does it best in this book-though written at the height of the Cold War he goes to great lengths and pains to explore and try to justify all points of view. In his other works where this kind of holistic exploration takes (EXODUS and THE HAJ for example) it seems almost forced and fake. If you are new to Leon Uris this book is a great place to start; historically informed and complex characters. If you are returning to Uris, give this book another read, it gets better and better with each page!

Uris does it again! Regardless of the inaccuracies other reviewers find, this is a book that tells an important part of healing and history that few students hear in a classroom. Furthermore, Uris whets the reader's curiosity to learn the facts, to seek non-fiction sources and learn about post-War Germany and the power plays that were the first frost of the Cold War.Uris is a master story-teller -- his characters come fully human, with strengths and weaknesses. His plot is gripping. His style is compelling.It would be interesting to find out what was going on in the author's head and heart as he wrote the piece, as it evolved from his pen.I agree that Uris is one of the best story tellers of our time.

I read this book several years ago, unable to put it down - and its prose still affects me today! This is perhaps the most powerful story I'd ever read. A dazzling array of characters from General Marshall to working women gathering bricks on rubble strewn Berlin cities, they're all here. Your transportation back to post-WWII Berlin is so vivid that you'll hear the roll and pounding of allied bombs, you'll swear that C-47s are flying over your living room every nineteen seconds delivering aid to stranded Berliners! Yes, its THAT powerful.Every character is human. They elicit empathy from you, even the SS candidate who must do the unthinkable upon graduation.To be sure, this book was written in the late 50s, early 60s. You know who the villian was then. There is a certain slant to Uris's story. He is not entirely objective in his portrait of all the villians in this novel. But it still works powerful magic. For an engrossing, absorbing history lesson, Read Armegeddon.Comments? Email me