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A review by kris_mccracken
The Korean War by Max Hastings
4.0
A few years old now, and was written without a lot of access to the Russian and Chinese archives, which limits its line-of-sight. That said, Hasting's presents a thorough portrait of the war, with all of its hubris, errors and tragedies.
Perhaps the key issue that didn't quite land for me is the fact that - in a abundance of voices from the UN armies, the Japanese holdovers and even some of their Chinese adversaries - the real absence of Korean voices. They are there, but primarily introduced via a Western lens. Perhaps this is appropriate, as Korea was indeed a proxy war in which the locals were mere ciphers for grander ambitions.
Despite this, it offers a great opportunity to understand how on Earth so many found themselves neck deep into the mess that was the war. Moreover, it offers some sense of why a resolution to the conflict remains elusive today.
Perhaps the key issue that didn't quite land for me is the fact that - in a abundance of voices from the UN armies, the Japanese holdovers and even some of their Chinese adversaries - the real absence of Korean voices. They are there, but primarily introduced via a Western lens. Perhaps this is appropriate, as Korea was indeed a proxy war in which the locals were mere ciphers for grander ambitions.
Despite this, it offers a great opportunity to understand how on Earth so many found themselves neck deep into the mess that was the war. Moreover, it offers some sense of why a resolution to the conflict remains elusive today.