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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
I knew very little about the Korean War before reading this book. Hoyt goes an excellent job exploring larger global and political issues, strategic concerns, and the fighting at both the theater and personal level. He is puts the war into geopolitical and national perspective, and is highly critical of General Douglas MacArthur for his inability is not outright refusal to recognize China's stake in the war, and their willingness to commit massive troops to the fight. He is also critical of MacArthur's wish to expand the war into China. Hoyt is similarly effective in recounting the fighting, from the decision of the generals on where to commit troops to decisions and actions of individual soldiers in the brutal fighting that took place on the Korean peninsula. He is most accurate in describing how Korea became the first war in which the American public began to question our involvement in a foreign land. He ends noting the real lesson of the war is how how the "United Nations was able to pull itself together and maintain a generally united front to stop a catastrophe."At times Hoyt is too detailed and I did skim many of the individual battle descriptions, as they all ran together after a while. The Korean place names were hard to keep in right relation to each other, and the maps were often too detailed or too small for me. I had to use a magnifying glass with my glasses to be able to understand the maps. They did help though.