The Korean War

A History

By: Bruce Cumings

Narrated by: David de Vries

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, for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long fight that still haunts contemporary events. And in a very real way, although its true roots and repercussions continue to be either misunderstood, forgotten, or willfully ignored, it is the war that helped form modern America's relationship to the world.

With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its start as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan's occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America's post-World War II occupation of Korea, the untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and the powerful militaries organized and equipped by America and the Soviet Union in that divided land. He tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, and exposes as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides and the "oceans of napalm" dropped on the North by US forces in a remarkably violent war that killed as many as four million Koreans, two thirds of whom were civilians.

In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.

Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.

©2010 Bruce Cumings (P)2019 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A powerful revisionist history... a sobering corrective." (New York Times)

Korea

My wife is Korean for 50 years & I served as a JAGC officer in 1972-1973. This book is an eye opener. Well done well read

Well documented

This book is quite devastating to the American ego, because it provides clear evidence that there was no black and white in the war, just grey.

Not the standard stuff . . .

Cumings raises the matter of atrocities committed by South Korea and the USA, too: surprising.

A real eye-opener

This book deals with the Korean War not as a prop in an heroic/tragic American morality play, but as a devastating historical event for Korea, the United States, and indeed the world. The U.S. conduct in this event—atrocities and complicity in atrocities, deception and self-deception, ignorance, etc—calls for a Truth and Reconciliation process, the author argues. It’s hard to disagree. He does not let any of the parties off the hook. But if N and S Korea have begun this process, so must we.

Great knowledge, not perfectly communicated.

This book is very balanced and full of essential knowledge for understanding this war. However I found it pretty hard to follow. Instead of following events chronologically, it often bounces around different names, places, and events in efforts to emphasize its grander narrative about history, memory, and hypocrisy. It may be easier to follow when reading in book form, but I found myself frequently rewinding and a bit lost. It’s hard to judge but it could be the narrator’s delivery as well.

insightful! different in a great way!

not just a straight historical recounting of the Korean War. Provides interesting perspextive of Why and How the war started. Bit of a leftist bent but nevertheless educational and a quick read.

Very informative

This was very clearly narrated. I learned a lot about the horror that was the Korean war and the United States' roll not just in the war but in the many atrocities committed. Also, the effect that the Korean War has had on US foreign policy and how we have yet to learn that war is not the answer and that until we face our less than stellar past, we are trapped in a cycle of self perpetuating violence for which all nations pay a heavy price. Very much worth a listen.

Good not great

Probably the best English-language history of Korea through the 20th century, but still mired in liberalism and anti-communism, especially in the last chapter.

Good general narrative

This book is a good general narrative that explains the general events of the war and the conditions that gave rise to it. it also criticizes some of the policies adopted by the US government during and after the war. This book isn't an indepth analysis but a general overview. it's a good starter book on the subject.

Too short, totally naive and told through the lenses of today.

This book is filled with liberalism, bias, and communist claptrap! He literally says the 38th parallel which was drawn up by hasty pentagon staffers goes back to antiquity!!! Insane! Read an older history that helps explain why we fought and how China wanted to become involved. This is not a conflict that can be told in an 8hr soundbite by a modern author who just wants to beat up on American intervention. This was not the vietnam war and can’t be put in the same mold. Oh, and sorry, Barack Obama can’t have a relevant quote on the Korean war, he wasn’t even born yet!