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The Korean War: A History By Bruce Cumings

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Recommended: Essays on the korean war

Linh My Dang
2013230064
Division of International Studies
Korea University
DISS: War and Peace
Professor Park Tae Woo
May 12nd, 2015
Book Review
The Korea War: A History
(Bruce Cumings)
The book I read “The Korean War: A History” is an excellent book which is written by Bruce Cumings. Bruce Cuming is an American historian of East Asia, professor, lecturer, author specializing in modern Korean History and contemporary relations. He is considered as one of the most very important scholar because of several books he wrote about Korea and what he talks about Korean War in his book “The Korean War: A History” which is different from others. This book is a combination of many essays focusing on the battle on Korean Peninsula, understanding of Korean …show more content…

Another important argument about Korean War in this book is that it is “either misunderstood, forgotten, or willfully ignored”. In some Western countries and the United States, Korean War is sometimes known as the “forgotten war”, however, Cumings rejected this. He believes that the “unknown war” seemed to be much better that this is both a forgotten war and a never known war. The author brings a lot of evidences to prove his arguments about this “unknown war”. He explained the reasons of this are because Korean War was overshadowed by World War II, Vietnam War. It happened after the World War Two and right before Vietnam War, which people all over the world pay much more attention to. The World War Two caused a severe damage and destruction, and deaths of a large number of soldiers and civilians in many countries; while Vietnam get popularity by winning the war against one of the most powerful and strong country- The United …show more content…

He has a very different fresh look about how the war was started, the role of foreign powers and the roles of all the leaders. Providing a broad series of materials, evidences, and detailed information from different sources, Cumings discusses about every aspects of the battle on this Korean Peninsula, focuses on the darker side of this “forgotten war” and the cruel of the United States’ backed government before the war. He broadens our knowledge and understanding about Korean country, its history, its relations with other countries, as well as the role of all the countries and leaders that got involved in, the US political and how it shaped the view of the conflict up to

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