The Korean War

The Korean War recounts the conflict that began with North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950 and rapidly became an international war involving United Nations forces led by the United States and large-scale Chinese intervention. Max Hastings follows the retreat to the Pusan perimeter, the Inchon landing, the advance towards the Yalu and the long fighting that followed China’s entry.

The book combines interviews with veterans and political-military analysis of leaders including Truman, MacArthur, Kim Il-sung and Mao Zedong. Hastings treats Korea as both a civil conflict and a central Cold War confrontation whose armies and civilians paid an enormous price for a settlement that ultimately restored a divided peninsula. First published in 1987, it is nonfiction military history.