Drawing the Line: The Korean War, 1950-1953 - Hardcover

Whelan, Richard

3.67

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9780316934039: Drawing the Line: The Korean War, 1950-1953

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316934038 ISBN 13: 9780316934039

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1990

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Discusses the political reasons for the American involvement in the Korean War, and offers profiles of the American and Korean leaders

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From Publishers Weekly:

Whelan ( Robert Capa ) argues that the Korean War was a turning point in current history with momentous repercussions worldwide: the conflict consolidated the international anti-Communist coalition and led to a quadrupling of the U.S. military budget, thus setting off the arms race. Whelan counters the popular view that the war was a failed American effort by demonstrating that the U.S. accomplished what it set out to do, i.e., prevent a Communist conquest of South Korea. The author presents a well-researched, gracefully written history of the conflict with emphasis on the political rather than the military aspect, and offers fresh insight into President Truman's decision to intervene. In an epilogue, he analyzes developments relating to the Korean peninsula since the 1953 truce. He concludes that the two Koreas "must eventually sign a peace treaty, establish full diplomatic and economic relations, and join the U.N." Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Whelan is doubtless correct in asserting that the vast majority of Americans know little more about the Korean War than what they have gleaned from M*A*S*H. And he is certainly correct in emphasizing the importance of this war, which President Truman initially called a "police action." There is no shortage of books on the war--Whelan's bibliography runs to nearly 200 items. Among recent studies of great merit are Max Hastings's The Korean War ( LJ 12/87) and Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings Korea: The Unknown War (Pantheon, 1988). Hastings has no peer as a writer of battlefield history, and the Halliday and Cumings volume is both challenging and controversial. Drawing the Line does not measure up to either of these, but it is nonetheless a well-informed, well-balanced work written in a lucid if bland style. Recommended to general readers and informed laypersons.
- John H. Boyle, California State Univ., Chico
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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