Halberstam was one of the greatest war correspondents and political journalists of the 20th century, and his talents are on display in this massive history of the Korean War. Equally adept at describing the horrors of a battlefield and the political decisions leading up to that battle, Halberstam takes the reader through the major moments and decisions of the Korean War.

His framing device is simple. Douglas MacArthur versus: vs Communists, vs the Truman administration, vs his own soldiers and ultimately, vs reality. MacArthur and his cronies are given little respect. In Halberstam's account, it's his usurpation of political authority in declaring Korea no longer part of America's Pacific perimeter that gives Stalin and Mao permission to let Kim Il Sung attack. It's his arrogance that sends outnumbered and poorly trained GIs into Korea to fight and die. And above all, it is his sycophantic staff and immense ego that allowed UN forces to be sucker-punched not once, but twice in less than a year.

This MacArthur centric-framing is probably not the most historically evenhanded, but it makes for a fun read, and this book needs all fun it can get. There's little to delight in-mostly bloody defeats, political miscalculations, and a paranoia as enveloping as the Manchurian cold. Halberstam does an amazing job bringing the players of the Korean War to life, although Washington DC is the major focus, with the rest of the UN coalition and the South Koreans given short shrift. Still, this is a classic of modern military history, and probably the 'one book' on the Korean War.