Korean War (CL) Hardcover - 2000

From the publisher

From the American infantry's attempts to take back Pusan from the North Korean communist forces at the outset of the war in 1950, to the U.S. assault on Inchon and capture of Seoul, to the final bloody battles of Pork Chop, Old Baldy, and the Hook in 1953, this authoritative history of the Korean War vividly chronicles the conflict that altered for the rest of the twentieth century the balance of power in the Far East. Begun with the resolve of the United States and United Nations to check the expansion of world communism in Asia, the war ended with the emergence of the People's Republic of China as a major new international power.

Written with the advantage of research in the recently opened archives of Russia and China as well as with access to documents in the files of the British War Office, this military history both acknowledges and significantly revises previous accounts of the conflict that made household words of a "war of containment", the DMZ (demilitarized zone), and the much negotiated POW exchange known as "the Big Switch". Throughout, maps and diagrams clarify the complex geography of the war, while the author's firsthand knowledge as a serviceman illuminates the strategy and tactics, the weaponry and fighting methods, of both the U.N. and communist troops. Finally, assessments of the war and its aftermath illuminate the crucial role the Korean conflict played in defining the U.N.'s future policy and the limits of the West's power in the East.