Amazon.com
When North Korea surged across the 38th Parallel into the south on July 25, 1950, it marked the first full-scale confrontation of the cold war. In the years to come, Korea's divided country would became a global political chessboard with the communists backing the offensive North and the U.S. and United Nations supporting the defensive South. What would follow were among the most brutal battles in the history of global warfare: the Pusan Perimeter, the Inchon Invasion, Pork Chop Hill, the Iron Triangle, and Heartbreak Ridge.
The Korean War: Fire and Ice, the four-part History Channel series, explores the historical factors, political entanglements, and military strategies of this pivotal struggle in exceptional detail. Rare black-and-white footage is combined with a diverse and knowledgeable group of veterans to paint a gripping, complete perspective of the Korean conflict. From its politically intertwined beginnings through the brutal battles and the unsettling truce that would leave more than 2 million lives in its wake, the Korea conflict would set the standards of East and West relations for the next 50 years. In spite of its political, historical, and military significance, the Korean War remains one of the least examined incidents in modern warfare. The Korean War: Fire and Ice is an excellent telling of military history as it was encountered by those who were there. --Rob Bracco
From the back cover
The names of its battlegrounds are seared into the American consciousness. Pork Chop Hill. The Iron Triangle. Heartbreak Ridge. Its toll on American Forces would equal the losses of Vietnam. Before an uneasy truce, it would claim more than 2,000,000 military and civilian lives. But even now, as more than half a century has past, this deeply significant, brutally dramatic conflict remains one of the least examined episodes in the history of modern warfare. Now, this comprehensive explores the origins, conduct, military strategies and political struggle in unprecedented detail. Rare archival film footage combined with a remarkably diverse group of on-camera Korean War veterans create a stirring, front-line perspective. These eye-witness experiences, from breathtaking heroics to some of the war's most darkest moments, bring to life the extraordinary impact of what it meant to be a G.I. in the trenches of this grueling conflict. With Key insights offered by prominent writers and historians, this is the untold story of the first full-scale clash of the Cold War. A clash that would set the rules of East/West engagements for the next half-century and bringing the world closer to the edge of global nuclear Armageddon than it has ever before been revealed.
