Fans of Halberstam will immediately recognize his writing by the research. Detailing the events leading up to the Korean War and analyzing the personalities and motivations behind the decisions made before and during the conflict makes for an interesting read. What one must be comfortable with in reading The Coldest Winter, though, are the lengthy digressions. One gets the impression that telling the story of the Korean War is incidental to the author's primary motivation for writing this book: to examine the political decisions and military miscalculations on both sides and to enlighten the reader as to what drove those decisions.
The prose is vintage Halberstam - clear, crisp and easy to read. And like all of the author's works, the book is painstakingly and meticulously researched. That said, the author spends far too much time on the back story. When he relates an event in history he tends to provide much context and then goes off on various tangents, the relevance of which can be difficult to discern.
Make no mistake: Some of the analysis is interesting, particularly that which illuminates the idiosyncratic personalities of the decision-makers, but much of it seems unfocused. Perhaps this can be attributed in large part to bad editing.
The Coldest Winter reveals a great deal about the causes of the war. Additionally, the heretofore unknown facts and interesting insights into the larger-than-life characters that figured so prominently in politics, foreign policy and military affairs during this period make the book worthwhile. One has to wonder though how many of the 736 pages are necessary to tell the story of the Korean War, a conflict that spans only 37 months. There is perhaps too much context. For instance, for a better understanding of the events leading up to our entry into the war, why do we need to know about Secretary of State Dean Acheson's affinity for the liberal left and defense of Alger Hiss? How much of that is relevant to Truman's decision to commit forces to the Korean peninsula? How much of the author's steady criticism of General Douglas MacArthur's leadership and decision-making is really necessary?
Being a military history buff, I would have liked to see more analysis of the battles and less of the personalities.
Halberstam excoriates MacArthur in this his final book before his untimely death in an auto accident in 2007. One might conclude from reading The Coldest Winter that Halberstam has an intense dislike and even disdain for the commander of U.N. forces. It comes across as 'personal' with the author. While MacArthur made significant errors (in spite of a brilliant decision to outflank the North Korean Army at Inchon), most notably relative to a miscalculation of Chinese intentions to enter the war, he deserves far better treatment for what on balance and over a lifetime was his incomparable and singularly dignified devotion to his country. More to the point, MacArthur's performance was arguably but one factor in a tragic and avoidable loss of some 3.5 million lives in a brutal conflict characterized as much for the unforgiving terrain and weather as for the vicious close fighting. Kim Il-sung's unprovoked assault into South Korea to 'reunify the fatherland' clearly surpasses MacArthur's decisions among the greatest military blunders of the 20th century.
None of this is intended to discredit what is a good narrative of the key events of this period. A word of caution to readers: This is not a book that will keep you on the edge of your couch for hours on end - not a nail-biter, to be sure. Instead, it is a slow, plodding and lengthy read.
Not on a par with its Viet Nam era counterpart, The Best and The Brightest, but on the whole not bad.
(158 customers reviews )
Customers Rating=4.5 / 5.0
More Detail For The Coldest Winter America and the Korean War
- ISBN13: 9781401300524
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Interesting Products
Blues people Negro music in white America
No comments:
Post a Comment