Military history

The Korean War

The Korean War

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle.

Max Hastings—preeminent military historian—takes us back to the bloody bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with more than two-hundred vets—including the Chinese—Hastings follows real officers and soldiers through the battles. He brilliantly captures the Cold War crisis at home—the strategies and politics of Truman, Acheson, Marshall, MacArthur, Ridgway, and Bradley—and shows what we should have learned in the war that was the prelude to Vietnam.

Prologue: Task Force Smith

Chapter 1. Origins of a Tragedy

Chapter 2. Invasion

Chapter 3. The West’s Riposte

Chapter 4. Walker’s War

Chapter 5. Inchon

Chapter 6. To the Brink: MacArthur crosses the Parallel

Chapter 7. The Coming of the Chinese

Chapter 8. Chosin: The Road from the Reservoir

Chapter 9. The Winter of Crisis

Chapter 10. Nemesis: The Dismissal of MacArthur

Chapter 11. The Struggle on the Imjin

Chapter 12. The Stony Road

Chapter 13. The Intelligence War

Chapter 14. The Battle in the Air

Chapter 15. The War on The Hills

Chapter 16. The Prisoners

Chapter 17. The Pursuit of Peace

Chapter 18. Hindsight

Chronology

Appendix

Photographs

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