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The Korean War |  | Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Seller: idaho_youth_ranch_books
Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 23572
Media: Paperback
Pages: 389
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 067166834X
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.9042
EAN: 9780671668341
ASIN: 067166834X
Publication Date: October 15, 1988
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Now Max Hastings, preeminent military historian takes us back to the bloody bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with more than 200 vets -- including the Chinese -- Hastings follows real officers and soldiers through the battles. He brilliantly captures the Cold War crisis at home -- the strategies and politics of Truman, Acheson, Marshall, MacArthur, Ridgway, and Bradley -- and shows what we should have learned in the war that was the prelude to Vietnam.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
Intellectual wrestling and division. July 22, 2010
APS (JACKSON, NJ, US)
Must read this for the benefit of the fathers generation; maybe it is like this somewhere for the present generation to worry about [in the future]; glory is in their honor as a historic success by the people [their gain]. A devise overcome for peace; may there never be a beginning 'baby' as this again, Somebody lost and much is forgotten. The lesson includes that the relationship in grace be always higher [the need for practice and not exercise cannot be more strongly emphasized]. The beginning of conflict before a darkness approaching the light. Great gratitude in the weakness having only one chance is conveyed to the fathers generation who engaged to the light.
A first-rate history of the 'forgotten war' April 13, 2010
L. Bravim
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Max Hastings' military history of the Korean war is based on over 200 interviews from soldiers, officials and civilians who lived the conflict first-hand. It is not only one of the finest English-language books on Korea, it rates as classic military history. The text rotates seamlessly from a strategic view of the war and its commanders to a company desperately trying to save South Korea from a brutally efficient offensive which nearly captured the whole peninsula.
The author views the conflict as a necessary war, but this does nothing to color the multitude of tactical mistakes which cost the UN dearly. While most of the soldiers were American and Korean, there were also thirteen other nations represented (e.g. Britain, Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Australian). Of course, the North Koreans were aided by the Chinese and Soviets. Hastings could have included more from the political side of things in both UN headquarters and Washington. For anyone with even the slightest interest in the 'forgotten war,' reading Hastings gripping account of the hermit kingdom between 1950-1953 is a must.
A Bulk of Information March 4, 2010
Patricia E. Mede
The Korean War
Max Hastings
The title of this book is quite self-explanatory as it describes the topic of the book. This historical recount is of the Korean War and the issues faced by all the sides in the fighting. Hastings conveys the topic of this book and his thesis through constant repetition of the fact that there were a large amount of issues with the American and Allied military forces as they tried to crush Communist intervention in South Korea. The thesis of this book is along the lines of the fact that the United States and their allies were so unprepared for this war that during the course of the fighting it always seemed as though the North Koreans and the Russians would doubtlessly come out victorious. The morale of the soldiers was crushed as more and more waves of aggressors came through to knock back the front until the Americans were nearly cornered at the Southern tip of South Korea. This book was a brilliant recount of the actions that took place during the Korean War and there was definitely a need for this book. Personally, I learned more from this book than I did from any other reading that I have done on the Korean War.
Max Hasting held to a very strict factual interpretation of the war throughout the entirety of this novel. He is constantly using quotes from majors and commanders about how the U.S. reacted to certain actions and how the Allied forces along with the United States decided how to make the next move. The bulk of this book is quotations and factual evidence while the reader is left to work through it and provide their own commentary on every statistic and every quotation. Hasting spoke mainly from the side of the United States and their allies against the North Koreans and Communism. He never exhibited the vast view of the United States for the Communist nations that were fighting alongside Korea. He often spoke of South Korea and how citizens acted when they were first attacked but he rarely includes a quote from a North Korea unless it was a major leader of the battle. This one-sidedness creates an obvious bias involving this novel and the situation that the North Koreans were in during the period. Hastings spends most of his time on the South Koreans and their allies while very often speaking in detail of the feelings of the Communist North Korean soldiers and citizens. He uses very few tables and maps but when they are inserted they are very helpful in an understanding of the text. For example, when he was describing how the North Koreans were destroying the Pusan Perimeter he included a map of Korea and all the cities and landmarks that were included in his description of the battling taking part during the section. In the middle of the book Hastings includes a section roughly ten or fifteen pages long that is completely filled with pictures and captions. This layout is slightly confusing because you must refer to the middle of the book whenever you need to look up a picture in order to try and understand the situation more thoroughly. On the other hand, when you reach this section is serves as a nice break to the heavy, historical reading. The reader can now look through the pictures at a leisurely pace as he/she prepares to continue to read the second half of the novel. To an untrained reader, this can be a very challenging book to understand. There is very little commentary and reading this is very comparable to reading a textbook. It is packed with information and at times it is quite hard to work your way through the mass of information. Hastings is by no means padding or confusing the text, he is simply giving the reader a raw representation of the data rather than an easily understandable version with many explanations. The reader of this book is forced to learn as they read in order to keep up with all the action taking place.
In my eyes, I found this book to be very successful in describing the confusing the Korean War. Due to the quick start to this fighting, the allies had to create an armed forces as quickly as possible and it gave them a huge disadvantage when they were trying to fight off the relentless Communist attacks. With a rag-tag group of soldiers who had little to no time in training before going out to battle, the anti-Communist nations had to exhibit unending willpower to keep the Communists from breaking down the barriers and unremittingly pouring into helpless South Korea. This is a very difficult book to understand simply because of all the information that needed to be conveyed to the reader. Hastings conveyed this important information brilliantly and thoroughly persuaded me into believing that the United States and their Allies were totally right to defend South Korea from the relentless Communists. I suggest that you do not read this book if you are not willing to spend time searching through the text to find out what is happening. With all the information that Hastings includes it is nearly impossible to read every page only once and still get a firm grasp of the subject. Despite the difficulty of this book, I believe that it was very powerful and that it really gave me a view into what the Korean War was like. I would have never guessed how confusing and uncontrolled all the fighting was and how close the United States was to defeat on so many occasions. I suggest that the reader of this book look into the topic of the Korean War prior to reading the actual book so that they can already have a background of the topic before the heavy reading begins. I did not do this and I definitely regret making that bad decision as it doubtlessly hindered my ability to smoothly comprehend the novel as it was being unfolded in front of me.
 Excellent Overview But May have a British Bias December 7, 2009
Aden Zydo (Atlanta, GA USA)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Let me first say that I recommend this book as a good one volume overview of the Korean War. Hastings does a fine job of weaving together the political, strategic and tactical elements of the war. The writing is of high quality, not overly bogged down in military minutia, but enough detail to provide a general education of the conflict. And, it is presented in an entertaining way that will keep the readers' interest.
Having said this, I found myself becomming more and more irritated by one thing: Hastings' apparent British bias. Some would say that this is expected from a British author, but I don't think that should matter. I don't doubt the accuracy of the information he chose to present in his book, but an author must be selective in what information to include and what not to include when fitting the history of a war into 300 odd pages. It seemed to me that the author was looking for aspects of the war where he could compare the British in a favorable light specifically against the Americans. It comes across as a kind of petty competition bourn out of some kind of apparent inferiority complex.
Maybe this is just my own American bias seeping into things, but I tend to be pretty fair in accepting the American shortfalls and mistakes when reading about history involving my country. I don't dismiss the American failures and blunders in the war, and I think the author was right to describe them. It was just the method by which he would describe American shortcommings in a way that would compare them to the "enlightened" perspective of the British. This seemed little "fishy" to me.
If you can deal with the above, you should find the book to be well-written general overview of the Korean War. I would actually give it 3.5 stars if I could, but couldn't bring myself to give it 4 or 5.
 Brit bias is obvious October 26, 2009
T. Hanna
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
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.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
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