Callum A. MacDonald

The Cold War and Counter-Revolution

On 25 June 1950 North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel in an attempt to unify the peninsula under the communist regime of Kim Il Sung. The South Korean state, based on right wing groups headed by Syngman Rhee, was to be eradicated in a quick military campaign. On one level, the attack was the latest act in a civil war which had been taking shape since the liberation of Korea from Japan in 1945. Korean developments, however, did not occur in isolation. The United States and the Soviet Union, the victors of 1945, divided Korea at the 38th parallel to accept the Japanese surrender. As in Europe, this temporary line rapidly became permanent, delineating the boundary between US and Soviet spheres of influence. Within their respective zones, Russians and Americans attempted to define the parameters of change. While Moscow supported the left, Washington entered a political alliance with the right, placing conservatives in control of the security apparatus bequeathed by the defeated Japanese in an attempt to contain communism. Thus the North Korean attack was not merely an episode in the struggle amongst Koreans. On another level, it represented a clash between the Soviet and American power systems. The war amongst Koreans was soon overshadowed by the war between the blocs.

Review Article: Westward the Course of Empire

ARTHUR POWER DUDDEN. The American Pacific: Prom the Old China Trade to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 314.

Vietnam: History by the losers

39.50 (CDN) SUNG-HWA CHEONG. The Politics of Anti-Japanese Sentiment in Korea: Japanese- South Korean Relations under American Occupation, 1945–1952. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991. Pp. xv, 190.

Korea: Mythology and scholarship

43.00 (US) HIDEO IBE. Japan Thrice-Opened: An Analysis of Relations between Japan and the United States. New York: Praeger, 1992. Pp. 294.

Deadlock at Panmunjom

49.93 (US) RICHARD B. FINN. Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xxi, 413.

Eisenhower: Peace with Honour

42.00 (US) ROBERT P. NEWMAN. Owen Lattimore and the ‘Loss’ of China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xvi, 669.

The POW Issue

36.00 (US) H. W. BRANDS. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 384.

Across the Parallel

39.50 (CDN) ODD ARNE WESTAD. Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 194...

The Korean Decisions

War and Aftermath in Vietnam, by T. Louise Brown. Routledge, London and New York, 1991. viii + 295 pp. £40. ISBN 0–415–01403–4. George Ball, Vietnam and the Rethinking of Containment, by David L. DiLeo, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1991. xxii + 265 pp.

The War in the Air

37.50 hardback,