Michael Pembroke's Korea: Where the American Century Began is a harrowing, eye-opening account of the Korean War, leaving no side unaccountable for the mistakes, atrocities and bad faith. It considers how the U.S. intervention in the Korean civil war is one of the most consequential, and least analyzed, decisions in American history. A global power, in full belief of its moral and military superiority, rushed into a nation on another continent to stop the spread of Communism and try to dominate the region.
While focusing mainly on the war itself, Pembroke, an Australian historian, makes sure to explain the geographic and historical context of Korea. For centuries it was the battleground between China and Japan, and from 1910 to 1945 it was a brutalized colony of Imperial Japan.
But in Pembroke's account, it is the U.S. that makes the most serious mistakes. Korea is thorough and damning, showing how hubris, racism and paranoia bled together to create a horrifying and destructive strategy that needlessly killed hundreds of thousands of people, propagated the use of napalm and introduced the use of biological weapons. Pembroke certainly doesn't take sides (he is likewise critical of China and the USSR's actions in the region) but makes clear that U.S. hegemony came at a far-too-brutal cost. The book is a must-read for anyone who wants better to understand modern American diplomacy, and is a reminder that history should not be disregarded, since it holds the keys to the decisions the great powers make today. --Noah Cruickshank, adult engagement manager, the Field Museum, Chicago, Ill.