Nam Kun and Nam Ki Han, brothers born on a Wahiawa sugar plantation, could not have been more different. Pragmatic and stubborn, Nam Kun dutifully supported his family but refused to become “one Christian fanatic” like his widowed mother and youngest sibling, Nam Ki. When Nam Ki is drafted into the army at the start … [Read More]
Booklist: Korean War (page 3)
The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951
From the publisher’s website: The sacrifice of the “Glorious Glosters” in defense of the Imjin River line and the hilltop fights of Australian and Canadian battalions in the Kapyong Valley have achieved greater renown in those nations than any other military action since World War II. This book is the first to compare in depth … [Read More]
Unusual Footnotes to the Korean War
A ‘forgotten war’ in modern history, the Korean War is rarely given much recognition or studied in detailed. In fact, it was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century, a deadly clash of world-views as the UN allied itself with South Korea against the massed ranks of North Korean armies backed by Communist … [Read More]
MacArthur in Asia: The General and His Staff in the Philippines, Japan, and Korea
“Hiroshi Masuda reinterprets MacArthur by going back to his years in the Philippines. In particular, [the book] focuses on the ‘Bataan Boys,’ the group of subordinates who accompanied MacArthur in his 1942 evacuation from the Philippines, and their views of MacArthur. MacArthur in Asia offers valuable insights into not only MacArthur’s public persona but also … [Read More]
Korean War in Color: A Correspondent’s Retrospective on a Forgotten War
As if it weren’t bad enough that the Korean War is, for many in the West, a “forgotten war” wedged between the larger conflicts of World War II and Vietnam, its legacy has been conveyed largely in the medium of black and white photography, putting up yet another psychological barrier between the conflict and modern … [Read More]
The Korean War: A History
From the publisher’s website: A bracing account of a war that lingers in our collective memory as both ambiguous and unjustly ignored. For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953 that has long been overshadowed by World War II, Vietnam, and the War on Terror. But as Bruce Cumings eloquently explains, … [Read More]
Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950
The first year of the Korean War was a tumultuous series of epic battles, ending in a legendary and harrowing retreat. In the summer of 1950, British and Australian troops were dispatched to fight with UN forces in the savage struggle against communism in Korea. After both triumph and tragedy while breaking out of the … [Read More]
The Memoirs of Hun Pong: The Pendulous Life of a Korean Man Who Served Both Sides of a Divided Nation During the Korean War
This is a true story of a Japanese-born Korean man who struggled for survival during the Korean War. It is also an inspiring book about human yearning for survival in the most miserable circumstances. Born in Japan, Hun Pong returned to his fatherland Korea after it became independent from Japan and worked for the Korean … [Read More]
The Surrendered
From the publisher’s website: Chang-rae Lee, the bestselling and award-winning author of Native Speaker, Aloft, and My Year Abroad returns with his most ambitious novel yet-a spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime. June Han was orphaned as a girl by the Korean War. Hector Brennan was a young GI … [Read More]
Korean Atrocity! Forgotten War Crimes, 1950-1953
As there was no clear victor at the conclusion of the Korean War, no war crime trials were held. But, as this book reveals, there is evidence of at least 1,600 atrocities and war crimes perpetrated against troops serving with the United Nations command in Korea. The bulk of the victims were Americans but many … [Read More]
Who Ate Up All the Shinga?
Park Wan-suh is a best-selling and award-winning writer whose work has been widely translated and published throughout the world. Who Ate Up All the Shinga? is an extraordinary account of her experiences growing up during the Japanese occupation of Korea and the Korean War, a time of great oppression, deprivation, and social and political instability. … [Read More]
The Unending Korean War: A Social History
Dong-Choon Kim seeks to understand the true impact of the Korean War (1950-1953) on South Korea’s people and society. How did key figures such as President Syngman Rhee respond when North Korean troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel and what does this tell us about the nature of the South Korean state at the time? How … [Read More]
To The Last Round: The Epic British Stand on the Imjin River, Korea 1951
From the publisher’s website: With even World War II now just on the edges of living memory, and with British forces now engaged in a lengthy, brutal and attritional old-fashioned war in Afghanistan, historical attention is starting to turn to the Korean War of the early 1950s. And remarkably, the most notorious and celebrated battle … [Read More]
Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War
Since the Korean War—the forgotten war—more than a million Korean women have acted as sex workers for U.S. servicemen. More than 100,000 women married GIs and moved to the United States. Through intellectual vigor and personal recollection, Haunting the Korean Diaspora explores the repressed history of emotional and physical violence between the United States and … [Read More]
Truman and MacArthur: Policy, Politics, and the Hunger for Honor and Renown
From the publisher’s website; Truman and MacArthur offers an objective and comprehensive account of the very public confrontation between a sitting president and a well-known general over the military’s role in the conduct of foreign policy. In November 1950, with the army of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea mostly destroyed, Chinese military forces crossed the … [Read More]
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
From the publisher’s website: Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history. The Coldest Winter changes that, giving readers a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, … [Read More]