The Korean War

The author here is British and this book screams it from the first page. His bias of Brit=awesome, American=scrubs is equally as obvious. If the book was not so tainted with this bias one may learn some interesting facts from reading it. Unfortunately the biased comments throughout the book ruin it.

Both World War II and the Vietnam War have a significant hold on the American psyche, but, for most people, the Korean War really is the "Forgotten War".

In his examination of the war in this volume, Max Hastings looks at the causes of the conflict--1950 was only one year after China fell to communism, and East Asia was viewed by the West as a strategic location where freedom had to be preserved. Hastings takes the reader through the major events of the war, including the initial retreat, the landing at Inchon and subsequent drive to the Yalu, the entry of the Chinese into the war, and the bloody stalemate that led to the armistice and a permanently divided Korea.

Hastings asserts that the war resulted in crippling costs for China, but also examines the effect of the war on the West, and demonstrates that aspects of the Vietnam War such as war weariness at home and breakdown of authority in military ranks were seen in the Korean War 15 years earlier. The author tells why some at the time thought that the possibility of a decisive outcome in the war was not possible.

There is also a chapter on prisoners of war that examines the differences in how British and American soldiers responded to being POWs. This solid one-volume history of the Korean conflict closes with a chapter called "Hindsight", in which the author concludes that the West was right to fight in Korea.

I think this book is a good purchase for those wanting to better understand this conflict. It is easy to read, and provides enough detail to get a really vivid picture of many aspects of the situation.

However, the book is now quite dated. He concludes that while life in the south under fascism (let's stop avoiding labelling it for what it was) was terrible. people soon realised it was a worse option than life under the communists. New research into masacres and other gashtly incidents shows us both sides were equally nasty.

Another weakness with the book is that it doesn't get into why communism in north korea was so succesfull. This would be a very interesting chapter, particularly if he made a bigger effort to see things from the side of ordinary people.

Not a bad book, and I'm glad I have it, but I will have to pick up another to get a more balanced view of events.

A smoothly readable, nicely paced overview of the Korean war. Hastings is one of the best at narrative history.

I bought this book because I wanted an unbiased view of the conflict. I did not want to read about only the positive aspects of the war from an American perspective. The American military, as well as the Truman Administration, made some pretty big blunders during this war and should be rightfully criticized. That said, I was surprised (and a little annoyed) to read how Mr. Hastings portrayed the American role. If one did not have much prior knowledge of the Korean War, they would walk away with the impression that the Americans were a bunch of blundering fools after reading this book. The British and Commonwealth troops are held high on a pedestal, marvelling at how incompetent their American conterparts are. The Commonwealth and other U.N. troops should be praised for their contribution to the war effort. The British & Belgian stand at the Imjim is of legend. Unfortunately, Mr. Hastings does this at the expense of the American contribution. I was hoping for an unbiased version of the war but did not receive it in this book.