Asian Trips - The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
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List Price: $35.00
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Manufacturer: Hyperion
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.904240973
EAN: 9781401300524
ISBN: 1401300529
Label: Hyperion
Manufacturer: Hyperion
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 736
Publication Date: 2007-09-25
Publisher: Hyperion
Release Date: 2007-09-25
Studio: Hyperion
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Editorial Reviews:
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David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book for the Vietnam War. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivalled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another dark corner in our history: the Korean War. The Coldest Winter is a successor to The Best and the Brightest, even though in historical terms it precedes it.Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter the best book he ever wrote, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history.The Coldest Winter changes that. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures -- Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order.At the heart of the book are the individual stories of the soldiers on the front lines who were left to deal with the consequences of the dangerous misjudgments and competing agendas of powerful men. We meet them, follow them, and see some of the most dreadful battles in history through their eyes. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, and provides crucial perspective on the Vietnam War and the events of today. It was a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to write. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.Includes an Afterword by Russell BakerTributes to David HalberstamDavid Halberstam died at the age of 73 in a car accident in California on April 23, 2007, just after completing The Coldest Winter. Legendary for his work ethic, his kindness to young writers, and his unbending moral spine, Halberstam had friends and admirers throughout journalism, many of whom spoke at his memorial service and at readings across the country for the release of The Coldest Winter. We have included testimonials given at his memorial service by two writers who made their reputations at the same newspaper where he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam War reporting, The New York Times: Anna Quindlen ...David occupied a lot of space on the planet. Perhaps he felt the price he must pay for that big voice, that big reach, that big reputation, was that his generosity had to be just as large. Most of us, when we take to the road and meet admiring strangers, vow afterward to answer the note pressed into our hands or to pass along the speech we promised to the person whose daughter couldn't be there to hear it. But with the best will in the world we arrive home to deadlines, bills, kids, friends, all the demands of a busy life. We mean to be our best selves, but often we forget. David did it. He always did it. The note, the call, the book, the advice. When I mentioned this once he dug his hands deep intothe pockets of his grey flannels, set his mouth at the corners, looked down and rumbled, "Well, but it's so easy." That's nonsense. It's not easy. But it is important, and why he has been remembered with enormous affection by ordinary readers all over this country, and why each of us who live some sort of public life would do well, with all due respect to Jesus, to ask ourselves about those small encounters: what would David do? ... Read her full tributeDexter Filkins .
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Skip it.
Comment: Halberstam must have spent considerable effort expanding this out to 600+ pages. His insights are repeated, ad nauseum, throughout the text. The narrative switches back and forth; between US pols, Tokyo and scant coverage of the battlefield itself. Each transition is burdened with fluff, and the seemingly endless repetition of notions presented earlier. He also lacked the ability to temper the influence of his own politics on the writing - even the portrayal of simple facts seems consistently nuanced. The portrayal of pols and senior officers that are either evil (McCarthy, MacArthur, Almond) or helpless victims of evil (Truman, Acheson, Walker) is indicative of his inability or lack of desire to truly winnow the facts or individuals' intent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Remarkable Book
Comment: This was the first book solely dedicated to the Korean War that I had read. Reading it was a powerful experience in many ways, especially when reading of the battles and the struggle for survival as experienced by the men in combat. Halberstam is good in following ordinary soldiers and officers in their respective units and how they dealt with critical situations. The leaders from all sides get a good analysis too. Gen. MacArthur doesn't come off looking good, and for good reasons. While his bold plan at Inchon succeeded, his desire to keep pushing north despite the dangers of Chinese intervention and Washington's desire to keep this to a limited war would lead to near catastrophe.
This book is heavy on key battles, military strategy, and the politics of the war from both sides. Some of the history behind the fall of China to the Communists led by Mao Zedong, and the politics of this development back in the United States are detailed as well. Halberstam does tend to jump around from chapter to chapter in order to try and bring the bigger picture to light. I think he does this fairly successfully, though I felt the military stalemate the war brought was dealt with in a fairly perfunctory manner.
Without doubt, the ordeal of the American soldier is lucidly told. One can almost sense the frigid cold ,the confusion of battle and the struggle for survival as the author describes it. Halberstam doesn't hold back from criticizing generals and other people (on both sides) who acted or made unwise decisions. The failure of MacArthur and others in accepting good intelligence information was a critical blunder. MacArthur's contempt or underestimation (maybe I'm being too kind) of his Chinese adversaries and for his own superiors in Washington were other areas where MacArthur and others deserved criticism. Unfortunately, those in Washington who could have been more forceful with MacArthur often let him have his way or were just down right timid to confront him. President Truman would eventually fire his general gone rogue.
The North Korean leader and the Chinese leader also get examined for their roles and where they made mistakes. The differences on military strategy between Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai (his top general) gets some mention as well.
Halberstam's skills as a writer certainly shine through in this book. One can also feel a passion behind his writing. A truly remarkable book that gave me a greater appreciation for the men who fought in Korea and for understanding the politics of the war.
Customer Rating:
Summary: When American and China fought
Comment: This book is not so much a history of the Korean War but more a meditation of the role of the war in the development of America's response to the cold war. There is a outline of the operations of the war but most of the narrative deals with the early battles and China's intervention. The last two years of the war are dealt with very briefly indicating that the Americans were able to develop tactics to use their superior firepower to turn the conflict into a draw.
The attraction of the book is that it deals with the historical context better than previous narratives and looks at the American response as something which was flexible rather than fixed and unchanging. It was in response to the Korean war that containment became working strategy of the cold war rather than roll back.
Halberstam sees the war as a disaster for the Democratic Party. The war seemed won after McArthur's landing at Inchon, but the American advance to the Chinese border that seemed to be able to achieve the liberation of the north failed. The Chinese counter attacked the strung out UN troops inflicting a huge initial defeat. This on top of the victory of Mao in China meant that the right wing of the Republican Party was able to tar the Democrats as poor, possibly traitorous defenders of the free world.
The problems of the Democrats was worsened by the actions of McArthur the highly egocentric theatre commander. After General Ridgeway was able to stabilize the UN front and to start inflicting very significant losses on the Chinese McArthur seemed to become jealous and unhinged. He started to call for an all out war against China and suggesting that the Truman administration was cheating the American people of a potential chance to roll back communism in China. Eventually he was sacked by Truman. Not only did Truman seem to have lost China and overseen a huge initial American defeat but he then ended up sacking a national hero. McArthur then attempted to position himself to run for the presidency but things fell apart following his evidence to a Senate inquiry when he revealed himself as an unrepentant idiot.
Halberstam is an admirer of Eisehower and sees him as being a moderate voice that was able to govern the Republicans from the centre and to set in train a response to communism that was rational and measured. When the Democrats again won power under Kennedy they felt that they had to re-fight the battles of the Korean war and show that they were not soft on communism. The Vietnam War arose as a public relations demonstration that the Democrats were not foreign policy push overs rather than a measured examination of the situation on the ground.
At the time the elephant in the room was of course that America decided to fight a full scale conventional war against China. Yet in those days this was never acknowledged or talked about. The discussion was about fighting the North Koreans and supporting Chinese volunteers. Part of the confusion was of course that "China" to the Americans at the time was the Nationalist regime which only controlled Formosa. The enemy was not even recognised as an official entity.
Eisenhower was nothing if not a person who had an open mind and could think. His conclusion from the Korean war was that the US fought under considerable disadvantage. Communication and supply were difficult for the US. Asian powers had large populations which meant that they could fight wars of attrition. He thus formed the view that the US should not involve itself in Asian ground wars. The Vietnam was being a war when one side was able to suffer immense losses of manpower but to continue fighting an attritiononal war that was eventually successful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Once again, Halberstam is predictably great.
Comment: Belongs on the shelf with the rest of Halberstam's great books: The Best and the Brighttest et al.
Thank you, David, for another great read, another wonderful and accurate critique. R.I.P.
Sgt Jackson, USMC 1988-2001
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Very Incomplete History of the Korean War
Comment: The book is interesting, but a reader expecting a comprehensive history of the Korean War will be disappointed. The focus is on the first four months of the Chinese engagement (Nov 1950 through Feb 1951) and the political background to Truman's discharge of MacArthur. Important battles -- the landing at Inchon and the retreat from Chosin -- are all but ignored. What it covers, it covers well; what it ignores leaves one puzzled.
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