World's End

[b:World's End 28586585 World's End (The Lanny Budd Novels) Upton Sinclair https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1453019132s/28586585.jpg 197780] is the first of [a:Upton Sinclair 23510 Upton Sinclair https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438843258p2/23510.jpg]'s Lanny Budd novels.At the start of the book, Lanny is a 13-year-old boy living with his glamorous mother on the French Riviera. A teenage boy is good vehicle to show pre-WW1 Europe. The reader gets to learn that lost European world along with Lanny as we follow his teenage adventures. In a posh Swiss boarding school Lanny meets Rick, an English boy, and Kurt, a German boy. They soon become fast friends. The three boys are all well to do and live a privileged and happy life. But, their world soon comes to an abrupt and violent end with the start of hostilities. The story then follows Lanny's life and, at one remove, the lives of Rick and Kurt throughout world war 1. Lots of other interesting folks, both fictional and historical, also people the book.World's End provides a nice mix of history, adventure, and romance. Sinclair puts in lots of detail about life in Europe before and during the war, and after the armistice. This first book in the series ends at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.Sinclair has a nice direct writing style which I rather like. His muckraking roots show in his characterization of the armaments/munitions industries, but that doesn't get in the way of the story.Sinclair's main protagonist, Lanny Budd, is a very precocious and likable young man. He seems almost too good to believe. I chose to think of him as an outlier. Out of millions of people, there would have to be a few such special ones.Though originally published in 1940, the story really doesn't feel very dated. Some of the problems it highlights could come from today's headlines. Problems related to extreme concentration of wealth, unemployment, incestuous military-industrial relationships, trends toward economic nationalism, and political corruption all seem very familiar.All in all, a pretty good book.