As a sometime student of Korea, I bought this book specifically because I wanted to have one book that could give me a solid grounding in modern Korean history in a digestible format, and "Brothers at War" does that splendidly. Jager starts at the end of the second World War, but does reach further back to the colonial period a few times to add context.

The period between the Japanese surrender and the Korean War is given some attention; I would have preferred a bit more depth but she hits on most of the important points that the average American might not know, such as the level of violence that existed before the official start of the Korean War, how things fell out with People's Republic of Korea (the provisional government set up by Koreans after the Japanese surrender but before the Allies showed up), and so on.

Jager's treatment of the war itself is pretty good. I saw at least one reviewer comment that there was not enough detail of important battles - for me there was perhaps too much. Although I have no doubt that many battles and military actions were potential turning points for the war, it got to a point where I felt the author was just listing battles that happened and making less of an effort to fit them into the context of domestic US opinion on the war, and the politics and diplomacy taking place concurrently with the war. The sections on civilian casualties caused by each side and the POW situations, on the other hand, were very interesting and useful in trying to fit the Korean War into a larger picture of the Cold War and American public opinion.

The chapters following the end of the Korean War had a peculiar flow to some extent, but I thought it worked. In a introductory lecture on North-South relations, for example, I've heard speakers move from the Korean War and just touch on each of the various provocations, like the logging murders or the hijacking (which, by the way, I don't remember seeing at all in this book - I'll have to go back and look for it), and then move quickly to the subject of nuclear North Korea. I enjoyed that Jager took some time to cover the various changes of administration in South Korea and how that affected SK policy and consequently North-South relations. Similarly, Jager takes a fairly lengthy detour into Sino-Soviet relations at one point, but did a good job making it all relevant to the subject at hand.

The recent release of this book is fortunate in that the author is able to include some thoughts on the Kim Jong-Un rise to power. Likewise she is able to speak to recent developments in the China-DPRK relationship, and posits that China is maneuvering to make a historical claim for Koguryo as a Chinese nation, and by extension that North Korea is historically Chinese land. An interesting thought.

In conclusion, I don't think this book is a full military history, nor a full history of South or North Korean politics. I think it is what Jager said it was - a good look at the "unending" Korean War, which draws from all of the places necessary to have a deeper understanding of it.

The author does an excellent job integrating political, military, and geopolitical interplay in this ongoing conflict.

She describes both North and South Korean politics and how they play off each other; as well as Soviet, Chinese, American and other interests. Her information on the large role Republic of Korea's military played ... and why ....in Viet Nam was new to me.

There was, however, one glaring error on the very first page of the text, following the Introduction. The author states: "In 1943, in the middle of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Premier Joseph Stalin, and Primer Minister Winston Churchill discussed the fate of Korea at the Cairo Conference..." Stalin pointedly did not attend this Conference. Stalin met with them shortly after this Conference, in Tehran, I'm surprised an editor didn't catch that.

Also, I was looking for a little more discussion of the Korean launching of mid and long range missles... seemed to get in a hurry there and skip over this. However, the Addendum did mention the irony of the Park and Kim family dynasties again facing off as leaders of North and South. That's pretty current.

Altogether .. a good synthesis of a lot of material, with perspectives I had not seen before.

I bought this book as a gift for my husband. He likes to study WWII and its aftermath, especially the history of the war in the Pacific theater. H loves this book, and he said it fills a gap in his knowledge. It's well- written and thoroughly researched. I wouldn't be surprised if he reads it more than once so as not to miss the details.

This is not a military history of the Korean War, but it is an excellent overview of the cultural, diplomatic, military and strategic factors that shape the Korean conflict from World War 2 right thru today. If any still believe the myths that Stalin or Mao had complete control over their Communist brothers in North Korea, this book authoritatively will dispel them. For anyone who wants to understand the Korean War and contemporary Korea this book is a must. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is , in my opinion, it gives too short a summary to the actual war 49-53, while the summary is very good, from my point of view it could have been more detailed. That is my only criticism .

This book is a huge achievement because it combines politics, strategy, and personalities seamlessly. I found myself looking up battles or decisions on Wikipedia to get an overview of some chapters. That helped me digest all that Jager is able to include. Her style is always readable and inviting despite all the geo-political twists and turns that she has to include in order to reveal the competing national priorities of combatants. Great for lovers of history books.

This is a good book for the historical recount of the Korean conflict starting at the end of the 2nd world war. It includes a much less detailed sketch (for obvious reasons of course) of todays North Korea and its regime and how it maintains its stranglehold on the population and the failures it made (with devastating consequences for its population). It also sheds some light on the way the North Korean regime plays its cards on the international diplomatic scene and tries to maintain the upper hand despite its dependency on aid from the outside.

Overall it is a nice recount of the Korean war and the continued political struggle between the two Koreas with the main focus on North Korea. Given the abundancy of books from authoritative (military) authors on the war itself, the value of this book is mostly in the overall coverage of the Korean conflict from the 1950ies until today. In that respect I would have expected more coverage and details of the North's regime structure and economic power today and South Koreas military and economic policies to "manage" the North. There is little reference and detail to for instance North Koreas nuclear program and the role it plays in the overall conflict (and potentially ending it).

This insightful perspective on the Korean War brings to life the global politics of the 1950s and the decades that follow. For the Koreans, the conflict is personal and deeply cultural leading to a state of paranoia, violence and acts of unconscionable atrocities. For the global powers, the USA, USSR and the PRC, the Korean Peninsula becomes a proving ground and a quagmire. Yet the lessons of Korea are barely learned and history inevitably repeats itself in Southeast Asia. This book reveals the Machiavellian talents of Stalin, the foolishness of Mao and the inner workings of US foreign policy. The question remains, however, how is the growing power of South Korea currently dealing with the starkly different suffering of the people of North Korea? What is the future of North Korea? Is it possible for the global powers to end the Kim dynasty and bring North Korea into the modern world?

Sheila Miyoshi Jager does an excellent job of showing the role Korea played in the Cold War, both during the Korean war and in its aftermath. She suggests, in fact, that the Korean war began the Cold War although its roots really go back to the Soviet usurpation of eastern Europe.

But the book describes well the difficulties the United States faced in dealing with South Korea's leaders, and problems the Soviets and Chinese encountered in dealing with North Korea's leader. While the leaders of the two Koreas were intent on unifying the country on their terms, the Americans, Chinese, and Russians were trying to maintain stability in Korea, even if that meant keeping it divided.

Especially interesting is the chapter on Jimmy Carter's naive plan to remove American forces from South Korea--an idea opposed by everyone except Kim Il-sung. Even the Russians and Chinese opposed the removal of American troops from South Korea because they knew that would embolden Kim Il-sung to begin another war, which neither the Russians nor Chinese wanted.

This book is well worth reading for those who are interested in Asian history.

Opinión de un especialista en temas norcoreanos: es un excelente libro para conocer la situación derivada de la guerra de corea.

This is an excellent piece of research work. It is a must read for everyone to get a balanced view of history on Korea

A well-researched, nicely illustrated and highly readable book about the Korean peninsular's troubled history. Its narration of the Korean War itself is gripping, combining a strong analysis of the political backdrop, a detailed description of the military campaigns and key battles, and personal anecdotes from some of the participants in the war. The author then sets out how the war itself triggered, to a great extent, the ensuing Cold War, and influenced regional geopolitics for many years to come, including the Vietnam War, Sino-Soviet-US relations, and China's recent emergence as a major global economic power. The book closes with a brief analysis of North Korea's increasing but ambivalent dependence on China, and the prospects for reunification of the peninsular. Writing this review on the day that Kaesong Industrial Complex has closed, in response to recent North Korean nuclear tests and missile launches, reunification seems as remote a prospect as it has been for much of the last 60 years. I think there could have been a little more analysis of the changing nature of South Korean society in the book - the author alludes to the increasing indifference, particularly amongst younger South Koreans, to reunification, but maybe there is enough material in that subject area for an entirely new book altogether!