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The Korean War: A History
Escrito por Bruce Cumings
Narrado por David de Vries
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A bracing account of a war that lingers in our collective memory as both ambiguous and unjustly ignored.
For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953 that has long been overshadowed by World War II, Vietnam, and the War on Terror. But as Bruce Cumings eloquently explains, for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long fight that still haunts contemporary events. And in a very real way, although its true roots and repercussions continue to be either misunderstood, forgotten, or willfully ignored, it is the war that helped form modern America's relationship to the world.
With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its start as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan's occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America's post-World War II occupation of Korea, the untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and the powerful militaries organized and equipped by America and the Soviet Union in that divided land. He tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, and exposes as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides and the "oceans of napalm" dropped on the North by US forces in a remarkably violent war that killed as many as four million Koreans, two thirds of whom were civilians.
In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.
Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a escucharInformación sobre el libro
The Korean War: A History
Escrito por Bruce Cumings
Narrado por David de Vries
Descripción
A bracing account of a war that lingers in our collective memory as both ambiguous and unjustly ignored.
For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953 that has long been overshadowed by World War II, Vietnam, and the War on Terror. But as Bruce Cumings eloquently explains, for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long fight that still haunts contemporary events. And in a very real way, although its true roots and repercussions continue to be either misunderstood, forgotten, or willfully ignored, it is the war that helped form modern America's relationship to the world.
With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its start as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan's occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America's post-World War II occupation of Korea, the untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and the powerful militaries organized and equipped by America and the Soviet Union in that divided land. He tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, and exposes as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides and the "oceans of napalm" dropped on the North by US forces in a remarkably violent war that killed as many as four million Koreans, two thirds of whom were civilians.
In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.
Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.
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This is not a survey of said conflict and is such an unusual choice for the Modern Library Nonfiction catalogue. Cumings asserts that for myriad reasons the Korean War drifted out of collective consciousness. The American stewards of the War (Acheson MacArthur) never understood the origins and prosecuted it in a heavy handed way which only exacerbated antipathy between North and South. The author asserts that the war can only be understood in the context that Japan made Korea a colony in the early 20C and that the ruling elite of the South collaborated with the Nipponese until the end of WWII. The propaganda of the time (racist Orientalism) used the grievance of Koreans invading Korea as it is moral compass. This was followed by the subsequent US/UN invasion of the North -- which isn't viewed as egregious. Then the Chinese came roaring across the Yalu and it became rather cold outside. Unfortunately this book launches asides at other books on the conflict, books I have lined up to read over the next couple days.
An immensely frustrating book. Cumings has an important argument to make: that the Korean war is properly understood as a civil war between Koreans who collaborated with Japanese occupiers in the 1930s (and became the leaders of South Korea) and the Korean guerrillas who resisted that occupation (and became the leaders of North Korea). When the United States essentially saved South Korea, it froze in place Korea's natural evolution, keeping the civil war from resolving up to the present. In addition, Cumings argues, the United States was complicit in atrocities committed by South Korean leadership against innocent civilians in both South and North Korea, and committed atrocities of its own by carpet bombing much of North Korea with napalm and high explosives. This is an important reinterpretation (or recovery) of the history and context of the war, and I imagine there are many Americans like me for whom this is a new and valuable, if horrifying, perspective. But it deserves a much better presentation than this. The book entirely lacks a clear organization; the chapters form a series of overlapping essays, but even taken as distinct essays, they don't sum to coherent arguments. The tone of the writing lurches back and forth between staid history, personal essay, and fierce polemic. Finally, it doesn't help that Cuming's cultural touchstones are Friedrich Nietzsche and Ambrose Bierce -- both brilliant observers of human nature, but also bitter, troubled, and often making their compassion deliberately inaccessible. I'm grateful for the research Mr Cumings has assembled over his career, but this book doesn't seem the best way to encounter it.
This short book is hard to evaluate because it contains a lot of inside baseball/score-settling with other historians, which only serves to reinforce the author’s point that Americans know virtually nothing about the Korean War, generally misperceiving it as being about the Cold War when it was and remains primarily a civil war and the outside country of most importance is probably Japan, whose occupation set the stage for rebellion against former collaborators (who made up a big chunk of the political class of South Korea until very recently). Cumings emphasizes the atrocities committed by South Koreans and occasionally Americans, while acknowledging that North Koreans also did plenty of harm which has yet to be exposed via a truth and reconciliation commission as in the South. There are meditations on the nature of history and memory that strive for poetry, but don’t quite get there; still, I did learn something about the intractability of the conflict and the ridiculousness of seeing Korea as simply a stage on which the West-Communist Bloc struggle played out.
“The same kind of inquiry is needed into American massacres such as Nogun-ri, the unrelenting firebombing of the North, and one of the most astonishing cover-ups in postwar U.S. history, the black-and-white reversal of the truth of what happened in Taejon.”(Cumings page 174)Cumings details many aspects of the Korean War, including:Nations involved (Korea, China, Japan, Russia, US, Britain)Firebombings and massacresUS napalm usePeasant uprisingsInfrastructure bombingsPolitical motivationsPerspectives of many differing points of view, and how they interactedFirsthand testimoniesI learned how the Korean War marked the beginning of the building of permanent US bases in foreign nations. These foreign occupations are what US is, and deserves all the attention Cumings gave.
This is the biography of Louis Zamperini read by Edward Herrman.( I have heard good things about the movie but I have never seen it.) This book is an amazing account of a young man who began life as a difficult, overactive child and a very clever and charming thief. His energy and strong will tells him to run away from home, but he returned. His brother saw talent in Louis and urged him to focus his energy to train in track since it was clear he had the ability to beat records in track. This decision opened doors for Lewis to excel and be chosen for the team to attend the Berlin Olympic games. World War II comes to American shores and Louis Zamperini joins the Air Force. Only after all that did Louis's story begin! Louis is a talented flyer but in1943 he is shot down and stranded on a raft in the Pacific Ocean. He and two airman are adrift for weeks fighting thirst, hunger, sun stroke, sharks, Japanese gunfire, and when you think things can't get worse, they do. You just have to read it to believe what this man endures. What an inspiration. It is a story that can change your perspective of life.
The biography of a man who survived the Japanese POW camps, and lived long enough to find healing and forgiveness in his heart. Remarkable. I listened to the audio version, which was very well done by Edward Herrmann. I also followed along in my Kindle, so I could look at the photos, and realized there were many notes not included in the audio version, so well worth getting the paper or ebook version I would say.
Author does a compelling job of bringing these people to life, particularly Louie and the other POW's. What a wealth of research she did. This was the side of the war we didn't hear much about.
This is a truly amazing story. I suppose it would be best to call in a biography. I'm a little conflicted, because on the one hand I really loved the story, but I'm not sure I'd pick up another book by this author. I think the author did a really good job of researching this particular person and the stories related to him, and I think she did a good job of chronicling his story. I think most folks who like biographies will rate this book highly, but I'm just not one of those folks - biographies too often just read like a chronicle.And this book fell into that same pattern for me.
I know it sounds like I didn't like the book - but I did. What I liked was the story, and the author did a good job of telling the story.
I was particularly happy that the author gave such attention to the post-war activities, and the amnesty that was granted to the Japanese war criminals. This made me think quite a bit about how I felt about it. On the one hand, I like that the US displayed forgiveness, but on the other hand it seems that the way that we went about it was very wrong. I was left with the impression that we granted blanket amnesty to some serious war criminals in the interest of securing better business and other relations with Japan. I never knew that one of the most serious of the war criminals that was granted amnesty went on to become Prime Minister of Japan. The whole think gave me lots to think about, continuing to revolve around that forgiveness thing...
I know it sounds like I didn't like the book - but I did. What I liked was the story, and the author did a good job of telling the story.
I was particularly happy that the author gave such attention to the post-war activities, and the amnesty that was granted to the Japanese war criminals. This made me think quite a bit about how I felt about it. On the one hand, I like that the US displayed forgiveness, but on the other hand it seems that the way that we went about it was very wrong. I was left with the impression that we granted blanket amnesty to some serious war criminals in the interest of securing better business and other relations with Japan. I never knew that one of the most serious of the war criminals that was granted amnesty went on to become Prime Minister of Japan. The whole think gave me lots to think about, continuing to revolve around that forgiveness thing...
Hillenbrand is an absolute gem of a non-fiction writer. Seabiscuit was a stunning read, as is Unbroken. I’ve begun to realize that a mark of a good non-fiction book in my view, is when I turn to the husband and feed him interesting bits and bobs from the book. In the case of Unbroken, he even began asking me where the story was at, what had happened to the main character. For it is that kind of story. A bold, brave, and just wonderfully written book.
Louie Zamperini’s life story is an incredible one. The pranks he pulled as a kid, as an adult. The way he makes it to the Berlin Olympics. And of course his amazing record-breaking 47 days on board a life raft with his pal, surrounded by sharks, having to figure out how to get water and food (albatross anyone?), trying their desperate best to survive, only to be captured by the Japanese. Another big part of the story is Zamperini’s – and the other POWs’ – struggles in the Japanese POW camps. The word ‘incredible’ keeps going around and around in my head. Because this is a truly incredible story of heroism, of bravery, of determination, of such cruelty, such sadistic cruelty.
Besides the amazing-enough story, there is also Hillenbrand’s fantastic writing. She knows just when to throw in great quotes, and it is obvious that her research is thorough and extensive. Unbroken is probably one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read.
Louie Zamperini’s life story is an incredible one. The pranks he pulled as a kid, as an adult. The way he makes it to the Berlin Olympics. And of course his amazing record-breaking 47 days on board a life raft with his pal, surrounded by sharks, having to figure out how to get water and food (albatross anyone?), trying their desperate best to survive, only to be captured by the Japanese. Another big part of the story is Zamperini’s – and the other POWs’ – struggles in the Japanese POW camps. The word ‘incredible’ keeps going around and around in my head. Because this is a truly incredible story of heroism, of bravery, of determination, of such cruelty, such sadistic cruelty.
Besides the amazing-enough story, there is also Hillenbrand’s fantastic writing. She knows just when to throw in great quotes, and it is obvious that her research is thorough and extensive. Unbroken is probably one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read.
I wanted to like this book more.
This is a powerful life story.
Each of the three main journey's of Louis Zamperini's life:
* As a pre-WWII athlete
* As a WWII bombardier and POW
* As a returned POW with PTSD and later alcoholism
could be its own saga, interesting and compelling in its own right. Hillenbrand was wise, however, to tell the whole arc of the man's life, as each phase informs the others. She's also told stories of some of the key people around Zamperini, such as the story of his bomber captain, who made it back to marry his sweetheart.
All of this is made very poignant by the final forgiveness, which does not free all of the tormentors of their guilt, but certainly freed Zamperini to live his own life and find a way out of the haunted life he was living after he returned stateside.
Hillenbrand has written a young adult version of the book, which simplifies the story and I think makes it less shocking, while still trying to be true to the story. Of most interest is that the young adult title has more illustrations. I would like to see it if only to take a look at them.
Each of the three main journey's of Louis Zamperini's life:
* As a pre-WWII athlete
* As a WWII bombardier and POW
* As a returned POW with PTSD and later alcoholism
could be its own saga, interesting and compelling in its own right. Hillenbrand was wise, however, to tell the whole arc of the man's life, as each phase informs the others. She's also told stories of some of the key people around Zamperini, such as the story of his bomber captain, who made it back to marry his sweetheart.
All of this is made very poignant by the final forgiveness, which does not free all of the tormentors of their guilt, but certainly freed Zamperini to live his own life and find a way out of the haunted life he was living after he returned stateside.
Hillenbrand has written a young adult version of the book, which simplifies the story and I think makes it less shocking, while still trying to be true to the story. Of most interest is that the young adult title has more illustrations. I would like to see it if only to take a look at them.
WOW. Excellent! Tough to get through - some of the chapters were excruciating, but loved it and learned so much. Don't want to give too much away... but 47 days in a life raft was the EASY part of this guy's life.
Unbroken is the biography of Olympian and World War II prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini. It is quite apparent that the author had done an incredible amount of research to collect and verify the facts that she included in the book. All along, I thought to myself, “The author must have spent years (7) compiling this information.” While this book is non-fiction, it is incredible that Mr. Zamperini ran in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, managed to return from a mission with his B-24 filled with nearly 500 bullet holes, survived 46 days in a rubber raft in the middle of the Pacific, and absorbed the abuse of overzealous Japanese guards for over two years in a POW camp. The account sin the book sound more like a conglomeration of a dozen men’s experiences rather than just one. The accounts read like fiction - one would be hard-pressed to create a more compelling fictional character than the real-life Mr. Zamperini.The author does an excellent job of describing the characters and settings. She organized her chapters such that there was always an intriguing hook to keep the reader engaged. I felt I wanted to keep reading to find out how he resolved his conflicts and how he endured the hardships.
Fascinating story, but went on too long for me. The author had so many facts, it seemed to be difficult to weave them into a readable story without it becoming a historical journal. Amazing story of strength and resilience and overcoming the odds.
This book is phenomenal on so many levels. For me, it was most important in teaching me how the Pacific theater was just as important a part of Word War II as was Europe. It educated me and astounded me regarding the cruelty that man is capable of perpetrating upon others. Oddly, it led me to the Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, because I wanted to see the airplanes that were described in this biography. At the museum, I did not see the B-24 nor the B-28 described in this book, but I did see the Enola Gay, the B-29 which dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. I sit back and recoil in horror thinking about my family who burned in the crematoria of Auschwitz, but now I am also mortified at the cruelty of the Japanese to our American prisoners of war and to what lengths Americans went to stop the war. I was thoroughly amazed at Louis Zamperini. I simply cannot understand how he survived all that he did and continued to still be active and happy well into his nineties. He died of pneumonia at age 97. His story was tremendously inspirational.I am impressed with Laura Hillenbrand's ability to tell a compelling story. She writes with a flair for imparting knowledge and curiosity to her readers. I cannot wait to see what subject she picks for her next book because I also found her book Seabiscuit truly fascinating.
This is a very well written book about a remarkable man who endured almost unspeakable cruelties in a Japanese prison camp during World War II but lived to tell his tale and also to overcome what today we call PTSD and what would understandably be hatred for the Japanese.There is no need to summarize this story as the book (and the movie made from it) have been read/sen by millions of people. Suffice it to say that Louis Zamperini was a remarkable man who remained humble about his many accomplishments until the end of his life.My reason for only giving this book three stars is because I just could not deal with the violence inflicted upon Zamperini by the Japanese. Ironically I finished this book on the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Th portrait of the Japanese in this book is a good argument for why the US did that.
It truly is amazing what these men went through. If I didn't know it was a true story, I surely would have wrote this off as a Hollywood story line. The best part about this book though, that the movie does not go into, is how this man was able to see all this adversity through God's eyes. He was able to see the good through it all and has had an amazing testimony because of it. Must read!
I have no words for how good this book is and how good this man is, so the five stars will need to suffice.
Such an interesting book. The true story of a soldier who survived weeks on a raft after his plane went down in the ocean and then survived months as a Japanese POW. I loved the fact that he was painted as a real person with good and bad characteristics. The book was well written and the story was fascinating. I would definitely recommend this book.This book was so much more interesting than Hillenbrand's other book "Seabiscuit."
EXCELLENT!! The story of Louie Zamperini is incredible, superbly told by Laura Hillenbrand, author of "Seabiscuit: an American Legend". Unfortunately, a true story, were it fiction it would be too amazing to believe. After an inauspicious early life of petty thievery, Louie was encouraged by his loving older brother Pete to take up running. His life was totally changed, leading to Olympic glory and his incredible story of survival in WWII. He endured 47 grueling days floating at sea with two fellow airmen, after their plane was shot down, intensely strafed by a Japanese plane and miraculously not hit by the enemy bullets. That in itself is an unbelievable story. However, he was yet to survive several years as a POW, under inhuman conditions of starvation and torture in a prison camp in Japan. After the war, Louie fought alcoholism, horrible nightmares of his torture by a sadistic prison guard and tormenting thoughts of returning to Japan to murder his former tormentor. When writing her two books, the author fought myalgic encephalomyelitis formerly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. The fact she prevailed in her writing while fighting the debilitating disease, often bedridden for long periods of time, is in itself very inspirational! This book is so inspiring and informing on so many levels, spiritually, historically, religiously and humanly. Definitely, one of the greatest books I've ever read!
This was an amazing book. This man went through so much! The author did a great job of taking us through Louie's remarkable journey. I would definitely recommend this book.
I absolutely love this book. I actually read it after seeing the movie. Books always tend to be better than the movies. It is about the former Olympian and US Air Force lieutenant, Louis Zamperini. The book focuses on his journey through being captured by the Japanese and facing multiple near death experiences. The book shows how his courage and determination led to his survival and freedom.
Absolutely loved it! It was heartbreaking to read what our POW's experienced in WWII . The spirit and endurance to still be alive after all he went through is uplifting. A must read for anyone who loves non-fiction, history Olympics in Berlin right before WWII broke out in Hitler's Germany and the real facts told to the world from someone who lived it, breathed it and endured through it!
this book was a bit slow to start , but then i couldnt put it down, how could one man put up with so much devastation and hardship and come out at the end of it , fascination a must read , and i found out yesterday it has been made into a movie , so i must see it .
There's not much I can say about this book that hasn't been said already. This the story of Louis Zamperini. From a humble background he became a world-famous sprinter, then when WW2 came around he joined up like every other young man of his generation. While flying as a crewman on a bomber over the Pacific his plane crashed and then his great adventure began. Stranded for many days on a raft, then captured and tortured by the Japanese, he struggled to survive until the end of the war. A great story of perseverance. The subject matter is not pleasant to read, but this was a very good book.
Great book that showed the strength of the human spirit. Much better than the movie. Glad I read the book first.
I recently read Bruce Springsteen's graphic novel, Outlaw Pete and if anyone personifies that wild baby boy it's Louis Zamperini. Louis was a hyper-active child and somewhat of a delinquent who often reeked havoc in his neighborhood. Eventually, he found that running was a way to release his energy and succeeded in making the US Olympic team and competed at the Berlin Olympics. Like so many other young men in the 1940's, his life and ambitions were interrupted by World War II. As an airman and stationed in Honolulu, Louis had a few firefights under his belt when he was assigned to board the worst possible and questionably airworthy Green Hornet to search for a missing B-24 headed to Canton. What occurred on this fateful flight defined the remainder of his life. Back at home, he was haunted by the man, his nemesis, who tried to break his spirit and will to live but at his lowest point a surprising event changed his life.I read and loved Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit a few years ago and Unbroken is just as fabulous.
An amazing true life story...horrific in many parts, but a must read.
This was an incredible book. I don't know how the prisoners of war managed to hold on while being tortured by the Japanese. Japanese were incredibaly cruel towards their prisoners of war. I couldn't beleive that the main character Louie managed to stay alive during his time as a POW.
I don't like war stories, I don't like war, but I loved this book. I listened to the audio version read by Edward Herrmann and it was riveting. This book inspired a big interest for me in WW II, especially the Pacific theater, something I previously avoided. Just as Louis Zamparini couldn't exist in his life after the war until he accepted his fate, I can't ignore topics because I don't like them -- grow up girl (that's me) -- war is a big part of life and taints the way a lot of people look at the world long after the killing is done.