The Korean War by Bruce Cummings: An Audio Book Review and Giveaway

Congratulations to Danielle Hammelef who shared Stompin' at the Savoy in three places on social media--and won my copy of the book.

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It's been awhile since I've reviewed an audio book because of my new-found fascination with nonfiction picture books. I initially ordered The Korean War from Audible Books to gain a better perspective on what Ben Dinsmore, my protagonist in Half-Truths' father, experienced during and after the war. 

Bruce Cummings, author of The Korean War (Penguin Random House, 2011), is an award-winning professor and lecturer of East Asian studies. At 350 pages (eight hours) this book is not an easy read, but provides a lot of information and a different perspective of the "Forgotten War." 

MY TAKEAWAYS

The following points helped me understand what Kate's father witnessed.

• Cummings detailed the “dirty history” of both Communist and South Korean atrocities. 

•  Cummings believed that American soldiers who fought on behalf of defending the United States against the much-feared Communists, shouldered a thankless task. He also thought that Dean Acheson  arrived at the decision to enter the war alone. It was a question of defeating Russia and obtaining prestige for the United States.

• South Koreans were trying to go against centuries of inequities of social structure. The state squelched the middle class so there were two classes: peasants and aristocracy.  There was a tiny elite of rich but the vast majority of Koreans were poor. 

• To Americans, the task of trying to create democracy for South Korea seemed impossible. Their ostensible vision was to bring freedom and liberty to servants who were under Japanese imperialism. 

• Americans underestimated the enemy, North Korea. American GI’s were infected by the racism they knew in the States. They saw all Koreans as unreliable allies, primitive people of color, who lived in mud and squalor. 

• Cummings provides the historic context for the conflict both in Korean history, as well as showing American political and military agendas after WWII. He includes a lot of information about what led up to the war: MacArthur's background,  Korean's history with Chiang Kai-Shek), Korean blood lines, how the monarchy was influenced by Confucianism, nationalism in the North... You get the picture. There's a ton of information. 

Circa 1950: An elderly woman and her grandchild wander among the debris of their wrecked home in the aftermath of an air raid by U.S. planes over Pyongyang, the Communist capital of North Korea. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

• During the first two years of war, the American perception was that south Koreans weren’t trained well and just broke and ran in combat situation. 

• American GIs were constantly threatened by guerillas. 

• MacArthur contributed to this dehumanization of the "gooks." In the "Naked Parade of Shame," 2000 POW’s were paraded naked after capturing Inchon. The war atrocities came out years later. All sides violated conventions of protecting civilians, women and children. It didn’t dawn on Americans that South Koreans wouldn’t like to be called gooks. 

• Korea was a picture of extreme brutality. Upward of 100000 Koreans were killed before the war began. Another 100,000 afterwards.  As in Germany during WWII, incendiary bombing was also used in in Korea. Oceans of napalm were dropped on Korea. Depending on which side of the weapon you were on, it was either an infernal jelly or a wonder weapon. 

                                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4XOziHC2Q

                                  North American F-100 Super Sabre deploying napalm.

• The air war was awful. Many innocent civilians were killed in saturation bombing that was unimaginably destructive. 

 

• In 1951, newspaper journalism was put under the jurisdiction of the U.S. army and articles were censored. American journalists were cowed and useless. McCarthy used labels instead of arguments during this destructive era--evidence made no difference. 

• Korea was the place to where the Cold war first came and never left. Seven decades later there is still oriental bigotry.

• Soldiers were there to kill, but also to save and protect. They are supposed to protect the weak and unarmed. When he violates that, he threatens the fabric of international society. 

• Cummings argued that journalists and historians misread and misreported the Korean war so that it was slanted against North Korea. Atrocities were hidden and classified for 50 years, such as the systematic slaughter of political prisoners in 1950. He feared American complicity in this and believed the Joint Chiefs of Staff repressed photos for 50 years.  

• Cummings noted some of the results of the Korean conflict including more U.S. army bases around the world. The military industrial complex rose in the 1950’s with a larger standing army as a result. The armaments industry grew after Korea. 

• The Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission formed in 2005 for the sole purpose of national healing. Survivors and historians have pursued the truth and brought more information to light. 

• Cummings thought the war was never won. "If you look at the Washington Memorial, you will see mysteries and unresolved tensions on the stone faces". He felt as the war failed to liberate the north. In fact, our war with North Korea continues with fears of nuclear warheads. "Someday archives will open and someday there will be a full understanding of the war."

• Cummings advocated that the United States find ways to acknowledge past crimes and to reconcile with victims. "Forgetting is a gate keeper of conscience." He favored seeking reconciliation, not placing blame and understanding of one’s former enemy. Techniques of requiem, trial, reparations, and apology will help the country put ghosts to rest.

• "There is no military solution in Korea, and there never was."

MY THOUGHTS

It would have helped if Cummings had placed the history of the area and of American involvement in the first part of the book. Since there was a lot of material, important facts were given in the middle of the book. That made the chronology difficult to follow. 

It was clear by the end of the book that Cummings did not favor American involvement in the war. As it turned out, the day I finished listening to this I met someone who immigrated to America from South Korea many years ago. His opinion was very different. He was vehement in his appreciation of American involvement. 

I recommend this book for any young adult or adult who is interested in learning more about this time period. 

The narrator, David de Bries did a fine job of reading this book. Here is an audio snippet: https://tinyurl.com/yb5xlsf4.

GIVEAWAY

If you would like to win a copy of this audio book, please leave your name and email address in the comments and Recorded Books will provide a download code for you. This could be a great gift for the history lover in your life, Giveaway ends March 5 at 6 PM.

 

The Smallest Tadpole's War in the Land of Mysterious Waters: An Audio Book Review and Giveaway

Florida became a state in 1845 and was quickly thrust into the Civil War. The Smallest Tadpole’s War in the Land of Mysterious Waters bridges the years from 1843  to 1900. The main character, Thomas Franklin Swearingen, was author Diane Swearingen’s husband’s great-great-grandfather. 

Thomas Swearingen, an uneducated farmer who settled northern Florida when it was home to untamed forests, black bear, Seminole ponies, and biting insects, went on to become a legislator, a drafter of the Florida constitution, and president pro-temp of the Florida senate. This is his story—and the story of Florida’s early years as a state. 

• T.F. Swearingen may be in the 2nd row second from the left. Members of the Florida Senate Gathered on the capitol steps for a group portrait. Tallahassee, Florida. 1885

  https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/26206

  
  

  REVIEW

The Smallest Tadpole is told from the perspective of Henry, Thomas’s adopted son. Henry recounts that his favorite book as a child was Thomas’s diary.  Although Diane Swearingen fabricated Thomas’s diary and letters, she used county and military records as well as Thomas’s papers that now reside in the Florida State archives.  Historical accuracy permeates each diary entry and the entire book. 

Thomas left Georgia and settled in Wakulla County, Florida in the late 1840's. In 1855 when his best friend died, Thomas married his widow, Louise, and adopted Henry. In 1860, at the age of eleven, Henry became a man when Thomas left for the war. His boyhood days of fishing with Thomas in the Gulf of Mexico and camping out staring at the stars, were over. 

Henry remembers how Thomas, a prosperous businessman, had been invited to political rallies before the war. The local cotton farmers agreed that they shouldn't be taxed by the north. Although Thomas had been warned that slavery would remain in the South as long as it was a colony to the North, it was the unspoken issue at these rallies where secession was a huge topic. Although most of the farmers did not own slaves, (Florida's population was 140,000 in 1861; 63,000 were African Americans), wealthy cotton plantation owners held the purse strings and great political influence over the farmers. To speak against them was financial suicide. The political rallies became enlistment opportunities for the Confederate Army; the farmers were loyal to a way of life and to local economics rather than defenders of slavery.

Thomas was made a lieutenant in the Wakulla Guard because of his leadership and popularity in the county--not because of any prior military experience. (This verified the experience of Kate Dinsmore's great-grandfather. As the protagonist in Half Truths, I researched how her great-grandfather would have been made captain in Charlotte, NC under similar circumstances.)  With great pomp and ceremony, the Florida men left for war with families excited about the $100.00/month the soldiers would receive. 

But the reality of war set in quickly with women left alone to care for their farms and children, while news of injuries and deaths trickled in from the front. Thomas's letters reported the realities of war and Swearingen's portrayal does not hold back from describing the smell of death, ears that ran from cannon fire, and the screams of dying men. It put faces on the 16,000 Florida soldiers who never returned home. 

Henry's narrative of the war is sprinkled throughout with local stories of Wakulla County and his own enlistment prior to the war ending. There was not enough black cloth for all the widows to sew funeral attire. Carpetbaggers grabbed land because of taxes owed. The homeless and helpless were throughout the countryside. 

Although Thomas returned home injured, he was encouraged to run as the Florida representative of Wakulla County and from there held several political offices. Throughout his career Thomas was anti-slavery.

This audio version available through Audible, is expertly narrated by Jim Seybert.

WAKULLA’S BEAUTIFUL WAKULLA RIVER IS A SPRING FED CLEAR WATER RIVER THAT RUNS EVENTUALLY INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO.  TODAY, MANATEES SWIM UP TO WINTER IN ITS SPRING. FROM THE FLORIDA MEMORY COLLECTION.

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Jim Seybert's generosity, I will provide a code for the winner to download this book from Audible's website. To enter, please leave me a comment by February 28 along with your email address if you are new to my blog.