The Korean War: An International History

by Wada Haruki

This classic history of the Korean War—from its origins through the armistice—is now available in English for the first time. Wada Haruki, one of the world’s leading scholars of the war, has thoroughly revised his definitive study to incorporate new sources and debates. Drawing on archival and other primary sources in Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, the author moves beyond national histories to provide the first comprehensive understanding of the Korean War as an international conflict from the perspective of all of the major actors.

Tracing the North Korean invasion of South Korea in riveting detail, Wada provides new insights into the behavior of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Harry Truman, Kim Il Sung, and Syngman Rhee. He also provides new insights into the behavior of leaders and diplomats in Korea, China, Russia, and Eastern Europe and their rivals in other nations. He traces the course of the war from its origins in the failed attempts of both North and South Korean leaders to unify their country by force, ultimately escalating into a Sino-American war on the Korean Peninsula.

Although sixty years have passed since the armistice, the Korean conflict has never really ended. Tensions remain high on the peninsula as Washington, Beijing, and Pyongyang, as well as Seoul and Pyongyang, face off. With rising international conflicts in East Asia, it is even more timely now to address the origins of the Korean War, the nature of the confrontation, and the ways in which it continues to shape the geopolitical landscape of Northeast Asia and the Western Pacific. With his unmatched ability to draw on sources from every country involved, Wada paints a rich and full portrait of a conflict that continues to generate controversy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, War, China, Asia

410 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Stacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fascinating exchanges between Mao and Stalin are filled with stratospheric details about like a non-biological warfare, Japanese non intervention and more. It was hard very dense (as any 300 page book on the Korean War would be). I’m grateful for the summarizing last sentences to each paragraph. I wish he had talked more about what had happened with Japan (because that is his focus) after WWII and before the Korean War... besides the evil Americans and all. It served a purpose explaining Asian relations during the Korean War. The flow of the book was difficult.

[モーリー · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been looking for a book like this for a long time: a history of the Korean War that isn't US-focused or just a narrative of US soldiers. Well, it is certainly an international history full of information. But it's nearly unreadable. The book lacks a narrative and instead is one minor detail or date after another. I wish the author had given more of his interpretation, given his obvious deep knowledge of the sources from Korea and Russia. It's a great book but sadly I just couldn't bear to read the whole thing.

[Aisyah Samuin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sure this book is full of information and scholarly thoughts but like what is mentioned in one of the review, it is almost unreadable and lacks narrative. I always lost my train of thoughts while reading this book because I kept being bombarded with dates in no particular order. A pity though. I really want to like it.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Korean War, an international history,” 3/14/2014


“The Korean War, an international history,” by Wada Haruki, translated by Frank Baldwin (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014). This is a political history---the military situation is described as it is relevant, but never in much detail. Instead, using Russian, American, Chinese, Japanese and Korean sources, he describes in sometimes excruciating detail the machinations that drove the fighting. Who started it? The North Koreans, after getting the OK from Mao and Stalin. Syngman Rhee in South Korea wanted to attack, and launched a few raids, but he never had the troops or equipment to do it, and the Americans wouldn’t let him anyway. Haruki concludes that this was actually Stalin’s war---he encouraged the North Koreans, promised all sorts of support to Mao’s Chinese to participate. Kim il-Sung did not begin as the “great leader.” He was one of several leaders, and had no military expertise. But he was a deft politician and plotter, and eventually outmaneuvered all his rivals to power. Rhee was terrible: greedy, egomaniacal, fanatical, corrupt. He was so bad that the Americans supported efforts to overthrow him and nearly engineered a coup to get rid of him in the middle of the war. Rhee had serious political enemies---the National Assembly tried to oust him and he essentially took over by force. At first the Reds had little conception of the Americans’ actual power. They were not sure the US would even back South Korea, and North Korean troops succeeded in pushing the UN forces back almost into the sea. But Kim tended not to listen to the military advice of Stalin and Mao. He did not heed their warnings to pull back and not get overextended. He did not do anything to prepare for MacArthur at Inchon, even though the Chinese knew from the beginning that that was a likely site for an amphibious flank attack. The Soviets made a bad mistake boycotting the Security Council in an attempt to get Mao’s China into the UN and Chiang’s Taiwan out. It was during the boycott that the UN voted to defend South Korea. Once the Americans began to get their footing, and after Inchon, they began to devastate the North Koreans (and the hundreds of thousands of Chinese “volunteers” fighting along with them). The UN wasn’t sure what it wanted to do after pushing the North Koreans out of Pyongyang. They were wary of China, but MacArthur paid no attention and was driven all the way south past Seoul again when the Chinese entered in force. Eventually the UN---the Americans---controlled the sea, defeated the Russians in the air and dominated the skies, and pushed the Reds back above the 38th parallel. American bombers pulverized the north, leveling Pyongyang worse than any Japanese city during WWII, destroying nearly all of the North’s power plants and electric grid, turning the country into a desert. Finally neither side could win. The Reds argued among themselves about whether to end the fighting, and how. Stalin had decided there had to be an armistice, and got the North Koreans and Chinese to agree. But they stuck on the issue of repatriating POWs. The UN wanted to let them choose what country to return to, the Reds refused. They spent more than a year wrangling over this, while repeated Northern offensives were defeated. It is fascinating (and frightening) to read how the Communists used the language of political theory to argue and maneuver among themselves, and how nuances of one or two phrases could have terrible consequences. Through all this, the Japanese profited---the people never knew that their country was being used as the main base, that B-29s were taking off from Japan to roam over North Korea. As the armistice neared completion, it was Rhee who held out to keep fighting. He was delusional, insisted that if the UN did not back him he would take the fighting north himself. He finally got most of what he wanted, Kim emerged the great leader of the North, Stalin died suddenly as he was moving toward an armistice. China was exhausted, suffered huge losses, but learned how the Americans fought and what they would need to stand up to the US. Militarily, the UN/US was overwhelming, but did not desire to conquer the North---among other things, that probably would have meant world war. Even as the fighting was winding down, the US got very close to using nuclear weapons. The war, which has never ended, dominated the development of Northeast Asia. I couldn’t follow all the Chinese and Korean names, and all of the politically correct subtleties. But it is clear the Communists were in fact working very hard to subvert their enemies, trying and failing to create revolts and uprisings in South Korea and Japan. They did want to conquer all of Korea and go on to Japan. They did use front groups. Their language—about the democratic peace loving peoples of the world—was entirely fraudulent and hypocritical. Rhee was no better, and he just had his own power hunger as justification. Both sides committed atrocities and murders and mass executions. God.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Korean-War-...

[Malachi]

This book talks a lot (more than I’d prefer) about troop movements, and divisions and battalions and stuff. I really enjoyed the parts about international relationships, and I found the parts about where X infantry or whatever was at what time to be mind numbing. Overall I think a very effective book although I would say it is less an international history than it is a history of the Soviet sphere of influence. I still found that useful but I’d have been really interested in more of the relationships between ROK government and the US and ROK/US/Japan. I imagine that part of this gap is because the us is reluctant to declassify things, because, well, it makes the US look quite bad.

A really nice supplement to The North Korean Revolution!

[Ben Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. The cover says this book is an international history, but I do not think I was aware or ready for the immense task this book took down of showing this conflict, intimately, from all sides. Very high level government communications and memos word for word from five different nations is so impressive to me.

This is not a. conflict which I knew much about before reading this book. I have a new found view of this, its place in modern history and just how fundamental it was for so many things. If you like history books or books about IR which go into the fine details of state-making and diplomacy, this one is for you. I cannot recommend it enough.

A random pick off the shelf, but one that I'm more than glad I did.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative but dull.

[Bas Nabulsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough read, but I learned an incredible amount and have much follow-up reading to accomplish.

[Ariyasacca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pro north

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10 This is a very detailed book which focuses mainly on politics and mainly on Korea, China, Japan and the USSR. This is an academic work, so it's a little dry. It's extensively researched and has 100's of footnotes and quoting of source material. It's so not USA-centric that the sacking of Douglas MacArthur is covered in a few sentences. If you want something more military-centric and USA-centric, read The Coldest Winter instead.

[Stephen Boiko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Provided Rusian,Chinese,Japanese and, North Korean insights concerning the 2 Asian War.