The War for Korea, 1951-1954 : A Deep Trench

This third and final volume in Allan Millett’s comprehensive history of the Korean War is a journey through the final years of the conflict and a deep examination of the Geneva Convention in 1954.

By July of 1951, the war on the Korean peninsula had been raging for a year and the capital of Seoul had changed hands four times. Armistice talks had begun. The stakes remained high, not just for the Koreans but for the Russians, Chinese, and Americans as well. The future of the Asia-Pacific world and the fight for the global order hung in the balance.

In this third and final volume in his celebrated history of the Korean War, eminent historian Allan Millett leads readers through the complicated and interconnected series of military operations and diplomatic events that occurred from the summer of 1951 through May 1954, the end of the Geneva Conference on Korea. Drawing extensively on newly available archival sources, Millett brings new voices to the history of the war, including Russian, Chinese, and North Korean perspectives and adds new insights to the conventional wisdom of the American and South Korean views of the war.

Proud of their long history of resistance to invaders, both Koreas asserted they sought self-determination. One year after the armistice, with foreign armies still on their soil and scant evidence of recovery, Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-sung had taken political paths they believed were the pre-conditions for rebuilding their Koreas for the conflict they saw in the years ahead.

For the two Koreas the war raised barriers to unification that have not yet been breached.