Offers a challenging reassessment of the Korean War, tracing its roots from a civil war and its internal struggles, and discussing the question of germ warfare, the nature of the regimes in the North and South and other topics
Jon Halliday is an Irish historian specialising in modern Asia and was a former Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London.
Halliday authored a biography of filmmaker Douglas Sirk and has written and edited seven other books. He and his wife, Jung Chang, live in Notting Hill, West London. Together they researched and wrote the biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: the Unknown Story which received critical praise as well as serious criticism and spurred debate in the academic community.
Jon Halliday is the younger brother of Irish International relations academic and writer Fred Halliday
Korea, The Unknown War By: John Halliday and Bruce Cumings
Korea, The Unknown War describes the history of the Korean peninsula starting from the Japanese annexation of Korea. The book goes into depth about nearly every part of the Korean war and its aftermath. The authors provide hundreds of pictures, witness accounts, and UN documents pertaining to the war.
I would rate the book a 4 out of 5 stars because it can be a little slow and hard to read sometimes. John Halliday is an Irish historian specializing in modern Asia. He has written eight historical books including Mao, The Unknown Story, and Japanese Imperialism Today. Bruce Cumings is an American historian and professor at the University of Chicago. He specializes in east Asia.
The authors give a pretty good and un-bias view in this book. They list the shortcomings and atrocities committed by both sides and seem to lean towards the side of a unified Korea. The fact that they would want a unified Korea might stem from the fact that this book was written in 1988, when the war itself was more relevant, unlike today, where people have mostly forgotten about the war or don’t even know that it happened.
As a whole would recommend this book to anyone interested in Korea or history in general. However, if you are not interested in these subjects this book is going to be boring.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.