A review by anti_formalist12
The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings

3.0

This book is many things, few of them well thought out or properly explained. It is a brief history of Korea under Japanese imperialism, a history of American politics under McCarthyism, a literary study of some war literature, and an attack on the historiography of the Korean War. But it's not really a history of the Korean War. Cumings says all he wants about the war in the first forty pages, then he lapses into thoughts on Nietzsche, memory, and the nature of reconciliation. He spends close to two pages attacking David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter, largely for the sin of omitting many Koreans, but Cumings hardly ever discusses the PLA and their contributions to the war. Peng Dehuai, the revolutionary general that had fought the Nationalists, the Japanese, and then led one million Chinese "Volunteers" into Korea in order to push American, British, and ROK forces back to the South does not even merit mention. He spends a good deal of time speculating about the nature of the North Korean aims and plans during the war, which are difficult to verify considering the nature of modern North Korea, but he glides by China as if their contribution to the war only merited an offhand remark. What's more, Cumings refutes some of aspects of the history surrounding the Korean War, but he never really explains what he is refuting. Early in the book he mentions that the plan to push the North Koreans to the Chinese border came from the White House. He's refuting the fact that MacArthur has been seen as the main culprit in this aggressive campaign, but he never explains that that is what he is refuting. Cumings just assumes the reader will know that. Not only is this book not a good starting point for the Korean War, it's not even a good history of the reader has any background in the war.