The Korean War

By: Max Hastings

Narrated by: Cameron Stewart

Length: 19 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

On 25 June, 1950, the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.

Max Hastings drew on first-hand accounts of those who fought on both sides to produce this vivid and incisive reassessment of the Korean War, bringing the military and human dimensions into sharp focus. Critically acclaimed on publication, The Korean War remains the best narrative history of this conflict.

©1987 Max Hastings (P)2014 Audible Studios

Brings a true history to a war that is often over looked

Brings a true history to an otherwise forgotten war. The story keeps you engaged as it brings you through the years and battles that politics dictated instead of a goal to win the war.

did the Brits win this war?????

Hour after hour of British pride being expressed by Mr hastings! You would have thought they the british single handed won this war and the Americans are an after thought who blundered around the country making foolish mistakes which they then committed again in viet nam. this book was a major disappointment, I have read most of Max Hastings books and can honestly say were great histories well written and very informative. Don't know what happened here. Forget this one

An excellent historical work - but....

This is an excellent historical work focused on little known aspects of the Korean War.

unfortunately the reader's terrible attempts to affect an American accent while reading quotations, amusing at first, become extremely annoying by the end. I would much rather he read solely in his native British accent, preferring to imagine that I was being told the story by the author, himself from the UK.

The Korean War - Hasting's Take

Story: Overall, the book is very good and covers elements not covered in most books on Korea such as the UK contributions to the UNC. I recommend this book.

Narrator: it is always a pleasure to listen to Cameron Stewart. There is usual bias of an American listening to a British voice.

Production: Excellent.

Mostly a high level view

I had hoped, that the book would be more like Stephen Ambrose's books from World War 2. That is not the case. It's taking a higher level approach, with less focus on the combat and experience of the men.

British interpretation of the war

Would you try another book from Max Hastings and/or Cameron Stewart?

Nope

What do you think your next listen will be?

Another history

What three words best describe Cameron Stewart’s performance?

Over the top politics from a British view point

Did The Korean War inspire you to do anything?

Get a better history with more about the people that fought and less British politics

Any additional comments?

Want to swap as I will never try to get through this boring book again/

Strong mil-focused history of Korean War

Deft handling of military and political aspects, but a little weak on politics and lacks post-ussr fall docs. Aside from that doesn't feel all that dated and he takes advantage of when he wrote it to conduct interviews with lots of different voices. could have gone a bit deeper militarily. Pow chapter of Koreans held in the aouth fascinating. Good job weaving in different non-elite voices and from multiple sides. Would've loved to learn more about Turkish fighters. Worthy war in the end, particularly given how ROK has been able to thrive, important to see relative morality when defending flawed regime that's better than alternative. But enough with the Uk analysis can do no wrong.
Not a brilliant work, but good research and interviews went into it. Mac portrait good and concise, not much on us high politics. Good on characterizing how societies were responding to the war, perspective from everyday Americans and uk. Odd to think that uk in 1950 saw itself a first rate power, empire would last for awhile was operating assumption. Have to always be contextualizj get, imagining what is the recent history of the subjects, get a sense of their historical and political frame of references.

Interesting History

An interesting interpretation and story. But the author's dislike for America was obvious and reinforced by his biased examples and interviews with non-Americans.

Disappointing and boring

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simply the best chronology and

simply the best chronology and analysis o the Korean War ...heavy on facts and reflection

MASH It Isn't

Max Hastings is one of those extremely thorough writers that provides a comprehensive picture of the events in his books. I found the detail in his treatment of the war against Japan during World War 2 amazing. However, I was less enamoured with his work on the Falklands conflict as it read more akin to a government report and lacked more of the personal accounts that enrich the telling of such events. Still, Hastings is accomplished and so I felt his book on the Korean war would be a good start to gain an insight into that theoretically ongoing conflict.

This book didn't suffer nearly so much as his Falklands work did and so was a more interesting read. I care less for the politics behind the conflicts and more on the men that fought it but I do understand that one needs an overall frame of reference and thus a need to fully detail the politics behind the scenes.

It amused me to find out that in one meeting between the North Korean representatives and the American and South Koreans that both parties sat in silence across a table from one another for over 2 hours at a point in the conflict when tensions were running high. It's always amazing to see how egos play a part at the highest level seeing the American delegation having a separate entrance built to the negotiation hut in order not to use the same one as the North Koreans.

The book ably depicts just how brutal the climate was as well as the opposition and the harsh winters were killers to both sides. Having known very little about the conflict, I was shocked at the evident ineptness early on by the Americans and it shows how just a few years after World War II how the quality and readiness of the U.S army had sharply declined in that time. Also, the poor quality of the South Korean troops only added to this inadequate response to the North Korean incursion. The levels of cruelty by South Korean soldiers on their own troops and civilians was also an eye opener.

We also see the rise of the Kim family that went on to dominate North Korea to this day so yet another education in this war. Hastings is very diligent but I did note he omitted a small but relevant incident where a North Korean pilot defected with his MIG fighter after a leaflet drop by the U.S offering $100,000 to the pilot that did so. This intelligence coup would have shaped the response to these MIG fighters by the U.S pilots and so I was surprised Hastings missed this.

Dry politics aside, this book is an in depth treatment of the brutal conflict and well worth a read if you want to learn more about this event in world history.

A missing piece of history

Would you consider the audio edition of The Korean War to be better than the print version?

Print would have provided a reference book that I could see maps

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The political tensions between the various countries and the potential use of nuclear weapons

Have you listened to any of Cameron Stewart’s other performances? How does this one compare?

not listened to any

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

no emotional reaction other than wishing the veterans should gain far more recognition for their action in this forgotten and neglected conflict

Any additional comments?

A really worthy book to gain an insight into a war that has been ignored and forgotten.

Comprehensive, informative & genuinely interesting

Knowing only the broadest outlines of the Korean War, this title kept me company for a week out walking the dogs and more than once I found myself finding a bench or a gate to sit on a while and listen closely. I was expecting this to be a bit of a dutiful job, filling in a big gap in my personal knowledge but it turned out to be an extremely well-written, well-read piece of work which was from time to time as gripping as a novel for anyone not knowing what happened next. Not bad for a depiction of a war which was, I now understand, frequently a wretched, freezing stand-off.

Further reading reassures me that Hastings has not missed out anything worth fretting about so my admittedly inexpert opinion would be that I would heartily recommend this to anyone wanting to understand a major piece of recent history in one excellent volume.

Long but very easy to get through. Recommend.

The narrator was great and the content is good in that it breaks it up and looks at the conflict from multiple angles. Would have liked more north korean perspective even if caveats applied.

Consistently Gripping

A wholly gripping account of a war which Hastings argues had to be fought because of what was at the time a real threat from communist totalitarian states. As with his other books he offers eye witness accounts of combatants which keeps the action urgent and exciting while detailing the strategic and political efforts of generals, presidents and foreign policy wonks. It's a very satisfying combination and in this particular book it's applied to the story of a country split between murderous communists and despotic nationalists, each backed by a superpower. The allies had good equipment but a shortage of battle hardened troops, the communists had relatively poor kit but were willing to win victory by sacrificing massive numbers of poorly trained infantry. Hastings argues that the terrain and the border with China meant that the war was always, in effect, unwinnable but the story plays out as a riveting dog-fight between two enormous armies lead by gifted but deranged generals across an extraordinarily difficult landscape. Hastings' reflections on what happens when the electorates of democratic nations become bored of intractable conflict and repelled by the foreign regimes that their governments have backed also has strong resonances with what's currently happening in the middle east.

Korean Conflict

Having had an uncle in the Gloucester’s who was involved in the war I was interested to gain a better understanding of the conflict.
The in depth research and personal accounts make this book a must all historians.

Insulting American accent

This book would be okay if the reader didn’t adopt the worst, insulting accent that I’ve ever heard.

Too Anti American

While the facts presented are apparently correct, they are written with an anti American bias.

Presenter was good and entertaining

enjoyable listen

l learnt a great deal about the conflict especially how America didn't learn from it's mistakes during the war

A fascinating history of the 50’s Korean War

I really enjoyed learning about the history of the Korean War, a subject I knew very little about. The narrator’s performance was excellent and his ability to use accents greatly added to the account and he clearly knew how to pronounce military terms correctly which is a big bugbear for me with other narrators.

I like Hasting’s books generally but at times this account did drag and occasionally seemed to lack direction. Thankfully it would eventually pick up and I got to the end much wiser and happy for the hours I’d committed to it. I would definitely recommend the book.