The Korean War

The Korean War: A History is a nonfiction book by American historian Bruce Cumings, first published in 2010. It is an exhaustive history of the years leading up to the Korean War, the war itself, and the occupation in the aftermath. While the Korean War is considered by most Americans a near-forgotten conflict that lasted from 1950 to 1953, Cumings expands his scope and shows it as a generations-long struggle that still affects contemporary events. Using new and formerly classified evidence, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Cumings paints a picture of a civil war that erupted in the aftermath of Japan’s brutal 35-year occupation and escalated. He also delves into the forgotten history of America’s post-World War II occupation of Korea and the untold insurgencies and rebellions that erupted. Cumings’ goal is to show the inhumanity of war and the crimes that were perpetrated by both sides. The Korean War: A History was widely praised and is considered one of the most exhaustive American examinations of the period, although it is controversial for Cumings’ harsh take on US Military actions both during the war and in its lead-up. It is a frequently used resource for studies of modern Asia.

The Korean War: A History is divided into nine chapters, covering large events and factors that led to the war and its aftermath. The first chapter, “The Course of the War”, is a brief recap of the war from beginning to end, how the Korean civil war broke out and eventually involved major world powers in a battle that became a proxy for capitalism versus communism. Chapters two and three examine the way the different parties view the war decades after the fact. Chapter two, “The Party of Memory”, examines the way the Korean peninsula still views the war as a defining time in their history. The North holds it as an ongoing insult that they have never accepted, still demanding the reunification of both countries under their rule, while the South still views the war as a massive cultural scar that they are unwilling to see repeated, leading them to be more open to reconciliation. However, chapter three, “The Party of Forgetting”, shows that this does not persist in the United States. Unlike the heroics of World War II or the disaster and tragedy of Vietnam, the Korean War is largely forgotten by Americans, and Cumings argues this has led them to forget its lessons. In chapter four, “Culture of Oppression”, Cumings argues that this national amnesia comes from what came after the Korean War - namely the Red Scare and the McCarthy era. National self-examination was discouraged, even seen as disloyal in an era when the cold war was ramping up and anti-communism was at a high.

Chapter five, “38 Degrees of Separation: A Forgotten Occupation” delves into the root causes of the Korean War, looking at the extended Japanese occupation of Korea and the brutal abuse of Korean civilians, followed by the post-war occupation of the peninsula by American troops until the fall of North Korea to the communists and the ensuing civil war. Cumings examines major, rarely-discussed skirmishes that led to the inevitable outbreak of war. Chapter Six, “The Most Disproportionate Result: The Air War”, is Cumings’ most controversial chapter, in which he discusses the massive air bombardment of North Korea by American forces during the war. Cumings argues that this may have constituted a war crime, one of many areas of the Korean War that he says has been completely glossed over within US borders. In chapter seven, “The Flooding of Memory”, Cumings discusses the way the memories of the Korean War were erased by US propaganda, the Cold War, and the start of the much longer, more complex Vietnam War. Chapter Eight, “A Forgotten War That Remade the United States and the Cold War”, Cumings looks into the geopolitical impact of the Korean War. While it didn’t loom large in the United States for long after the war, it was post-war America’s first conflict with communism, and Cumings argues it fueled everything that came after until the conclusion of the Cold War in the 1980s. The final chapter, “Requiem: History in the Temper of Reconciliation”, Cumings looks at where we are today, and examines the lasting scars of the war in the state of the two Koreas today, as well as in the United States and how it views its wars. The book also contains detailed timelines and maps to illustrate Cumings’ exhaustive look at the period.



Bruce Cumings is an American historian, professor, and history writer with a specialty in East Asia. Currently the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History, he is the former chair of the history department at the University of Chicago. A specialist in modern Korean history and international relations, he has been honored around the world and in 2007 received one of South Korea’s highest honors, the Kim Dae Jung Academic Award for Outstanding Achievements and Scholarly Contributions to Democracy, Human Rights and Peace. Described as the left’s leading scholar of Korean history, he is a divisive figure, with some calling his work revisionist but others praising him for his even-handed approach to the conflict.