The Winds of War is Herman Wouk's second book about World War II, the first being The Caine Mutiny (1951). Published in 1971, it was followed up seven years later by War and Remembrance; originally conceived as one volume, Wouk decided to break it in two when he realized it took nearly 1000 pages just to get to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1983, it became a highly successful miniseries on the ABC television network.
Foreword
The Winds of War is fiction, and all the characters and adventures involving the Henry family are imaginary. But the history of the war in this romance is offered as accurate; the tics, as reliable; the ivards and acts of the great personages, as either historical, or derived from accounts of their words and deeds in similar situations. No work of this scope can be free of error, but readers will discern, it is hoped, an arduous effort to give a true and full picture of a great world battle.
World Empire Lost, the military treatise by "Ar?run von Roon," is of course an invention from start to finish. Still, General von Roon's book is offered as a professional German view of theother side of the hill, reliable within the limits peculiar to that self-justifying military literature. Industrialized armed force, the curse that now presses so heavily and so ominously on us all, came to full power in the Second World War. The effort to free ourselves of it begins with the effort to understand how it came to haunt us, and how it was that men of good will gave-and still give-their lives to it. The theme and aim of The Winds of War can be found in a few words by the French Jew, Julien B: Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. In this sense the most insignificant writer can serve peace, where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing.