Historical Dictionary of the Korean War

by Paul Edwards

Overview

The Korean War has often been regarded as a forgotten war, although that is certainly unfair. It was, if anything, a rather crucial war within the ambit of the Cold War, started by North Korea in 1950 and, although the bulk of the fighting was over by 1954, peace has never been concluded and the two sides still face off over the demilitarized zone. On the other side of the zone is South Korea, which has since become a very prosperous and democratic country, while North Korea has achieved relatively little. So, that war is certainly not forgotten by the Koreans. And, given the large number of deaths and casualties, it is still remembered by many in the United States and other allies, as well as China and the Soviet Union.

This Historical Dictionary of the Korean War, now in its second edition, does much to jolt our memory and inform us about the war. This is done first in a lengthy chronology, tracking the war but also the path to war and what happened after. The introduction covers the war as a whole, trying to make sense of it. The dictionary section provides all of the necessary details on significant persons, places and events, battles and other engagements, military units and material, as well as the political, economic and social background. There are also maps and a list of acronyms. This is really the ideal source for information, in addition to which, it also has an extensive bibliography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810867734
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/10/2010
Series:	Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest , #41
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	435
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Paul M. Edwards is a leading specialist on the war, having served in it and since become an academic. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Korean War at Graceland University. In addition to teaching, he has written more than a dozen books, including The Korean War: A Documentary History and The Hill Wars of the Korean Conflict.

Editorial Reviews

This forty-first entry in the Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest is a second edition. The first edition, The Korean War: A Historical Dictionary, was published in 2002 and is now out of print. The author, a Korean War veteran, is the Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Korean War, located at Graceland University. Significant people, places, events, battles, and military units are covered as well as the political, economic, and social background of the war. The work is arranged in similar fashion to other historical dictionaries: a list of acronyms and abbreviations, maps, chronology, introduction, the dictionary entries, appendixes, and a bibliography. Eight maps include significant battles and events of the war. The chronology begins in 1882 with the signing of the Korean-American Treaty of friendship and commerce and ends in September 2009, when North Korea made a series of conciliatory gestures toward Seoul. The introduction summarizes the war and discusses its phases as well as its costs and consequences. The approximately 1,250 entries range in length from one line to three pages; words in boldface within an entry indicate separate entries for those topics. Among the six appendixes are casualty lists and key documents. A 71-page bibliography is broken down into 18 categories, including electronic sources. This is an excellent resource for academic libraries, particularly for those with studies in military history, as well as public libraries. It is a good update to Historical Dictionary of the Korean War (Greenwood, 1991), and it complements more recent reference works.

Booklist

No person is more prolific as a reference source on the Korean War than Paul Edwards….It is a valuable and very handy reference source.

American Reference Books Annual

This second edition--part of Scarecrow's Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution and Civil Unrest series--follows the 2003 original from Edwards, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Korean War at Graceland University and the author of many books and articles on the Korean War. A short overview of the history of Korea and the chronology of the war gives way to the entries, which are brief and factual.--Library Journal

This forty-first entry in the Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest is a second edition. The first edition, The Korean War: A Historical Dictionary, was published in 2002 and is now out of print. The author, a Korean War veteran, is the Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Korean War, located at Graceland University. Significant people, places, events, battles, and military units are covered as well as the political, economic, and social background of the war. The work is arranged in similar fashion to other historical dictionaries: a list of acronyms and abbreviations, maps, chronology, introduction, the dictionary entries, appendixes, and a bibliography. Eight maps include significant battles and events of the war. The chronology begins in 1882 with the signing of the Korean-American Treaty of friendship and commerce and ends in September 2009, when North Korea made a series of conciliatory gestures toward Seoul. The introduction summarizes the war and discusses its phases as well as its costs and consequences. The approximately 1,250 entries range in length from one line to three pages; words in boldface within an entry indicate separate entries for those topics. Among the six appendixes are casualty lists and key documents. A 71-page bibliography is broken down into 18 categories, including electronic sources. This is an excellent resource for academic libraries, particularly for those with studies in military history, as well as public libraries. It is a good update to Historical Dictionary of the Korean War (Greenwood, 1991), and it complements more recent reference works.--Booklist

No person is more prolific as a reference source on the Korean War than Paul Edwards....It is a valuable and very handy reference source.--American Reference Books Annual

From the Publisher

This forty-first entry in the Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest is a second edition. The first edition, The Korean War: A Historical Dictionary, was published in 2002 and is now out of print. The author, a Korean War veteran, is the Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Korean War, located at Graceland University. Significant people, places, events, battles, and military units are covered as well as the political, economic, and social background of the war. The work is arranged in similar fashion to other historical dictionaries: a list of acronyms and abbreviations, maps, chronology, introduction, the dictionary entries, appendixes, and a bibliography. Eight maps include significant battles and events of the war. The chronology begins in 1882 with the signing of the Korean-American Treaty of friendship and commerce and ends in September 2009, when North Korea made a series of conciliatory gestures toward Seoul. The introduction summarizes the war and discusses its phases as well as its costs and consequences. The approximately 1,250 entries range in length from one line to three pages; words in boldface within an entry indicate separate entries for those topics. Among the six appendixes are casualty lists and key documents. A 71-page bibliography is broken down into 18 categories, including electronic sources. This is an excellent resource for academic libraries, particularly for those with studies in military history, as well as public libraries. It is a good update to Historical Dictionary of the Korean War (Greenwood, 1991), and it complements more recent reference works.

Booklist

No person is more prolific as a reference source on the Korean War than Paul Edwards….It is a valuable and very handy reference source.

American Reference Books Annual (ARBA)

This second edition—part of Scarecrow's "Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution and Civil Unrest" series—follows the 2003 original from Edwards, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Korean War at Graceland University and the author of many books and articles on the Korean War. A short overview of the history of Korea and the chronology of the war gives way to the entries, which are brief and factual with little analysis or context. Allen Millet, in a review of the first edition for the Journal of Military History, was very critical of the dictionary, especially for the exclusion of Korean and Chinese entries and for the glaring lack of non-English-language titles in the bibliography. The author has rectified some of these problems with new entries and an updated and expanded bibliography that now includes some non-English materials. Still, even with these additions, it remains a very Western-centric work. Moreover, the lack of analysis is problematic. BOTTOM LINE James I. Matray's Historical Dictionary of the Korean War is a superior work of much more utility to scholars or students. For a one-volume dictionary, buy that title instead, still available from Greenwood.—Ryan Johnson, Univ. of Mississippi, Oxford

Library Journal