Fought on what to Westerners was a remote peninsula in northeast Asia, the Korean War was a defining moment
of the Cold War. It militarized a conflict that previously had been largely political and economic. And it solidified
a series of divisions -- of Korea into North and South, of Germany and Europe into East and West, and of China
into the mainland and Taiwan -- which were to persist for at least two generations. Two of these divisions continue
to the present, marking two of the most dangerous political hotspots in the post-Cold War world. The Korean War
grew out of the Cold War, it exacerbated the Cold War, and its impact transcended the Cold War. William Stueck
presents a fresh analysis of the Korean War's major diplomatic and strategic issues. Drawing on a cache of newly
available information from archives in the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union, he provides an interpretive
synthesis for scholars and general readers alike. Beginning with the decision to divide Korea in 1945, he analyzes
first the origins and then the course of the conflict. He takes into account the balance between the international
and internal factors that led to the war and examines the difficulty in containing and eventually ending the fighting.
This discussion covers the progression toward Chinese intervention as well as factors that both prolonged the war
and prevented it from expanding beyond Korea. Stueck goes on to address the impact of the war on Korean-American
relations and evaluates the performance and durability of an American political culture confronting a challenge
from authoritarianism abroad. Stueck's crisp yet in-depth analysis combines insightful treatment of past events
with a suggestive appraisal of their significance for present and future.