Summary: Unique in gathering war stories from veterans from all sides of the Korean War -- American, South Korean, North Korean, and Chinese -- this volume creates a vivid and multidimensional portrait of the three-year-long conflict told by those who experienced the ground war firsthand. Richard Peters and Xiaobing Li include a significant introduction that provides a concise history of the Korean conflict, as well as a geographical and a political backdrop for the soldiers' personal stories.
- (University of Kentucky)
Booklist Reviews
Edited by two Korean War veterans, this oral history volume rather breaks a trail in the historiography of that conflict, offering, after an excellent, balanced narrative introduction, accounts of various phases of the war by survivors from both sides. Here are the first clashes, the retreat--or, from the North Korean viewpoint, advance--south, and Chinese infiltration into North Korea, which led to U.S. disaster and the Chosin Reservoir campaign, during which the weather was bad for the Americans, worse for the underclad and undersupplied Chinese. The stalemate beginning in 1951 is covered by several voices, including those of a Korean housewife and a classic green second lieutenant, a South Korean. Thereafter come the Koje-Do prison riots, reported by both a guard and an organizer. If the book will change no one's politics, it definitely adds to everyone's store of knowledge, particularly about the Koreans, on whose territory the blood was shed. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.
Check Availability
