Unless you know the history, you cannot see the future. In late 1950, the US-led invasion of North Korea failed and for the next three years the United States bombed the North’s cities, towns and villages relentlessly. Pyongyang has been determined to develop a credible nuclear deterrent ever since.

The Korean War was the first of America’s unsuccessful military interventions post-World War II and its first modern conflict with China. It established the pattern for the next sixty years and marked the true beginning of the American century. With compassion for the people of the North and South, and understanding for the soldiers caught between the bitter winter and an implacable enemy, Michael Pembroke tells the absorbing story of Korea. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why the Korean peninsula has become the nuclear flashpoint it is today.