A useful historical narrative that is sometimes marred by the author’s omissions and mischaracterizations.
A no-holds-barred critique of U.S. involvement in the Korean War and its subsequent policy involving Korea.
In 1866, the armed U.S. merchant marine vessel General Sherman entered isolationist Korea’s Taedong River “in an attempt to reach Pyongyang.” An engagement ensued, resulting in the destruction of the ship and the deaths of everyone on board. More than 150 years later, argues historian and judge Pembroke (Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy, 2013, etc.), America’s Korea policy continues to be ham-handed and obtuse. The epitome of this failed policy was the Korean War of 1950-1953, a failed operation that set the course for the “inexorable wars and interventions of the last six decades.” The author effectively chronicles the American missteps in the Korean War, particularly the push northward to the Yalu River, which provoked a devastating response by China. He also makes solid points regarding North Korea’s determination to develop nuclear weapons and the continued presence of U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan. Yet he fails to provide the proper Cold War context to put the actions of those he criticizes in a more favorable light. Pembroke offers little on the tens of millions of innocent lives snuffed out by the communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and elsewhere. Moreover, the author can be somewhat naïve, as when he asserts that the North Korean state ideology of “juche” helps explain that nation’s “remarkable success in inculcating a spirit of communal effort.” Might the populace’s fear of imprisonment, torture, and death at the hands of a horrific regime better explain such an inculcation? Some other comments come off as offensive, as when the author describes enlisted men and women in the military as “troubled, problem-ridden individuals” whose “education and employment prospects are problematic.”
A useful historical narrative that is sometimes marred by the author’s omissions and mischaracterizations.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78607-473-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.
A delightful new translation of what is widely considered the first work of history and nonfiction.
Herodotus has a wonderful, gossipy style that makes reading these histories more fun than studying the rise of the Persian Empire and its clash with Greece—however, that’s exactly what readers will do in this engaging history, which is full of interesting digressions and asides. Holland (In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, 2012, etc.), whose lifelong devotion to Herodotus, Thucydides and other classical writers is unquestionable, provides an engaging modern translation. As Holland writes, Herodotus’ “great work is many things—the first example of nonfiction, the text that underlies the entire discipline of history, the most important source of information we have for a vital episode in human affairs—but it is above all a treasure-trove of wonders.” Those just being introduced to the Father of History will agree with the translator’s note that this is “the greatest shaggy-dog story ever written.” Herodotus set out to explore the causes of the Greco-Persian Wars and to explore the inability of East and West to live together. This is as much a world geography and ethnic history as anything else, and Herodotus enumerates social, religious and cultural habits of the vast (known) world, right down to the three mummification options available to Egyptians. This ancient Greek historian could easily be called the father of humor, as well; he irreverently describes events, players and their countless harebrained schemes. Especially enjoyable are his descriptions of the Persians making significant decisions under the influence and then waiting to vote again when sober. The gifts Herodotus gave history are the importance of identifying multiple sources and examining differing views.
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-02489-6
Page Count: 840
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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