KOREAN WAR
In the dry and clinical description of the annalist, the Korean War may be defined as a war between North Korea allied with China and the Soviet Union and South Korea allied with the United Nations and the United States of America. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. As always, wars have complex backgrounds. Reasons and factors and inevitabilities are dominoes that later historians set up in the worthy cause of warning the present time and future times not to go down that path.
I will keep this personal and small-scale. My father was a veteran of the Korean War. He was there 1953-1954 with the 7th Infantry Division and was awarded a Bronze Star for meritorious service. He was 23-24 years old there, fresh out of Michigan State University’s ROTC program. We always traded military history back and forth. Late in life he began to tell me stories of his time there — and of his experiences in the Dominican Republic and in Vietnam. As a bookseller I provided him with books on “his” war, which he appreciated for the larger canvas they provided. Here are some of the good ones I have found over the years. I know I don’t have enough of the Korean perspective of the war, and I don’t have many big strategic maps that situate the war within the Cold War. But this listing is a beginning. History is always beginning over. As a discipline, as a way of thought, history never tires of trying to get the story not only right but understandable.
Korea: The Untold Story of the War
Korea: The Untold Story of the War
"An absolutely brilliant book ... One cannot understand America and its history without reading it." — Merle MillerBetween World War II and Vietnam there was the Korean War, 1950–53. Often described as "the forgotten war," the conflict nevertheless had a huge impact on the course of Cold War history and the relationship of America to the Soviet Union, China, and the rest of Asia — an effect that remains far from played out. This definitive history, largely based on documents not previously available to scholars or to the public, were obtained by the author under the Freedom of Information Act. The book is widely considered an indispensable interpretation of the Korean War, including the epoch-making conflict between President Harry S. Truman and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Illustrated with maps and photographs, this edition features a new Preface by the author.
Reprint of the Times Books, New York, 1982 edition.