The Coldest Winter America and the Korean War

by Halberstam, David

• ISBN13: 9780786888627
• ISBN10: 0786888628
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Hachette Books

Summary

"Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history. The Coldest Winter changes that. Halberstam give us a narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides portraits of all the major figures, including Truman and Eisenhower; Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong; and General MacArthur."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

David Halberstam (1934-2007) was the author of twenty-two books, including fifteen bestsellers. Born in New York City, Halberstam spent much of the 1960s as a reporter for the New York Times, covering the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. His Vietnam reporting earned him both a George C. Polk Award and a 1964 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Vanity Fair dubbed Halberstam "the Moses of American journalism," and the subjects of his books reflect his passion and range: war, foreign policy, history, and sports.

The Best and the Brightest (1962), his sixth book, a critique of the Kennedy administration's Vietnam policy, became a #1 bestseller. His next book, The Powers that Be, a study of four American media companies, was hailed by the New York Times as a "prodigy of research." Many of Halberstam's books explored themes in professional sports, including bestsellers The Teammates, a portrait of the friendship between baseball players Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr, and The Education of a Coach, a profile of New England Patriots' Coach Bill Belichick.

Table of Contents

A Warning at Unsan	p. 7
Bleak Days: The In Min Gun Drives South	p. 45
Washington Goes to War	p. 87
The Politics of Two Continents	p. 169
The Last Roll of the Dice: The North Koreans Push to Pusan	p. 251
MacArthur Turns the Tide: The Inchon Landing	p. 291
Crossing the Parallel and Heading North	p. 321
The Chinese Strike	p. 393
Learning to Fight the Chinese: Twin Tunnels, Wonju, and Chipyongni	p. 503
The General and the President	p. 589
The Consequences	p. 619
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.