Korean War in Asia

Tessa Morris-Suzuki is professor in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University.

The collection of essays in this anthology represents an important moment in the study of the Korean War. First, the field of Korean War studies is no longer dominated by macroanalyses of Cold War geopolitics. The “view from above” will no doubt continue, as it should, but this volume’s second contribution is how “forgotten” can be redefined. Typically, “forgotten” means the war’s absence from US historical memory. Few Americans learn much about the war in high school history classes, and even fewer are aware of the war’s role in establishing a permanent military industrial complex in the US. But these essays detail how Japan and Taiwan’s participation in the world is forgotten or ignored, the effect of the war on the lives of individuals not from the peninsula, and the unexpected connections between the war and countries like Mongolia. For example, one essay describes the lone Japanese POW and how his life ties together several wars, countries, and armies into an integrated East Asian and micro-historical view of the war. A wonderful balance to the top-heavy studies of the Korean War, which students will appreciate.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries.

• List of Figures, Map, and TablesAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Korean War, the Region, and the WorldTessa Morris-SuzukiChapter 1: A Fire on the Other Shore? Japan and the Korean War OrderTessa Morris-SuzukiChapter 2: The Korean War and Manchuria: Economic, Social, and Human EffectsMo TianChapter 3: From One Divided Country to Another: The Korean War in MongoliaLi NarangoaChapter 4: Victory with Minimum Effort: How Nationalist China 'Won' the Korean WarCatherine ChurchmanChapter 5: The Other Legacy of the Korean War: Okinawa and the Fear of World War IIIPedro IacobelliChapter 6: A War across Borders: The Strange Journey of Prisoner No. 600,001Tessa Morris-SuzukiChapter 7: The Life and Death of Line-Crossers: The Secret Chinese Agents of UNPIKCatherine ChurchmanChapter 8: The United States, Japan, and the Undercover War in KoreaTessa Morris-SuzukiEpilogue: Northeast Asia and the Never-Ending WarTessa Morris-SuzukiBibliographyIndex