The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
From AwardAnnals
 | |
| Author(s) | David Halberstam |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | America and the Korean War |
| Publisher | Hyperion |
| Honors | |
| Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history. The Coldest Winter changes that. David 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 River, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures, including Truman and Eisenhower; Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong; and General MacArthur. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, and it provides crucial perspective on the Vietnam War and the events of today. 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. | |
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 misjudgements 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 peopleasked 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 Baker
Reviews
Barnes and Noble
One military historian called it “the century’s nastiest little war.” The three-year Korean Conflict (1950-53) was certainly that, but for Americans, it is also “the forgotten war,” a protracted struggle that, as David Halberstam noted, “sometimes seemed to have been orphaned by history.” The author of The Best and the Brightest rescues this early Cold War confrontation from oblivion with a commanding narrative that encompasses every facet of the war, from wounded G.I.s belly-crawling across bloody battlefields to world leaders coolly debating strategies and consequences. Whatever his quarry, Halberstam keeps his focus at the human level; his detail-rich portraits of Truman, MacArthur, Mao, Matthew Ridgway, and George Kennan (to name but a few) bring them to life as people.
