Allan R. Millett

"More than 36,000 American servicemen died in combat or by other causes during the Korean War. As terrible as this figure is, it pales in comparison to the war's nearly two million civilian deaths. To put the war's carnage into perspective, the South Korean armed forces, whose soldiers were drawn from a male population half the size of the Union's in the American Civil War, suffered more combat deaths than the Union army.". "These statistics cannot hide the fact that ultimately the Korean War, like all others, is about the lives and deaths of individual human beings. Their War for Korea tells the individual's story. Although war as a human phenomenon has essential elements that have repeated themselves from the dawn of recorded history, every war is unique unto itself. The forty-six vignettes, placed in proper context by renowned historian and best-selling author Allan R. Millett, catch the uniquely Korean and international flavor of this terrible war while telling its essentially human story."--BOOK JACKET.

When major powers sent troops to Korean peninsula in June of 1950, it supposedly marked the start of one of the last century's bloodiest conflicts. Allan Millett reveals the Korean War actually began with partisan clashes two years earlier and had roots in political history of Korea under Japanese rule, 1910-1945. The first in a new two-volume history of the Korean War, Millett's study offers the most comprehensive account of its causes and early military operations. Millett traces the war's origins to the post-liberation conflict between two revolutionary movements, the Marxist-Leninists and the Nationalist-Capitalists. With the U.S.-Soviet partition of Korea following World War II, each movement, now with foreign patrons, asserted its right to govern the peninsula, leading directly to guerrilla warfare and terrorism in which more than 30,000 Koreans died. Millett argues this civil strife, fought mostly in the South, was not so much the cause of the Korean War as its actual beginning. Millett describes two revolutions locked in irreconcilable conflict, offering an even-handed treatment of both Communists and Nationalists-Capitalists. Neither movement was a model of democracy. He includes Korean, Chinese, and Russian perspectives on this era, provides the most complete account of the formation of the South Korean Army, and offers new interpretations of U.S. occupation of Korea, 1945-1948. Millett's history redefines the initial phase of the war in Asian terms. His book shows how both internal forces and international pressures converged to create the Korean War, a conflict that still shapes politics of Asia--Publisher's description.

"Mao's Generals Remember Korea demonstrates that the PRC continues to draw military, diplomatic, and strategic lessons from the war it fought fifty years ago with the world's most powerful military force. It offers valuable insight into the Chinese way of war and the military mind of Mao that will be a rich resource for Asian and military scholars."--BOOK JACKET.

"From personal papers and official documents, prominent historians of the U.S. Marine Corps present essays here on the twenty-seven Commandants who served the Corps between 1775 and 1983. Collectively, their essays trace the history of the Marine Corps through the experiences of the Commandants and their support staff. Each essay describes a Commandant's personality and analyzes his entire career with a focus on his term as Commandant. Frank assessments are offered of each Commandant's performance and historical significance." "From the appointment of Samuel Nicholas in 1776 to John A. Lejeune in 1920 and Robert H. Barrow in 1979, this anthology of original works is the first in terms of focus, research, and analysis to tell the story of the Corps through the performances of its Commandants."--BOOK JACKET.

Primarily a history of Marine accomplishments in the invasion of the Solomons, the book also contains a brief history of the Corps, an account of Marine training, and a chapter encouraging enlistment.

In The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning, the author, a military historian argued that the conflict on the Korean peninsula in the middle of the twentieth century was first and foremost a war between Koreans that began in 1948. In the second volume of a monumental trilogy, he now shifts his focus to the twelve month period from North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, through the end of June 1951, the most active phase of the internationalized "Korean War." Moving between the battlefield and the halls of power, he weaves together military operations and tactics without losing sight of Cold War geopolitics, strategy, and civil military relations. Filled with new insights on the conflict, this book is the first to give combined arms its due, looking at the contributions and challenges of integrating naval and air power with the ground forces of United Nations Command and showing the importance of Korean support services.^ He also provides an account of the role of South Korea's armed forces, drawing heavily on ROK and Korea Military Advisory Group sources. He integrates non American perspectives into the narrative, especially those of Mao Zedong, Chinese military commander Peng Dehuai, Josef Stalin, Kim Il-sung, and Syngman Rhee. And he portrays Walton Walker and Matthew Ridgway as the heroes of Korea, both of whom had a more profound understanding of the situation than Douglas MacArthur, whose greatest flaw was not his politics but his strategic and operational incompetence. Researched in South Korean, Chinese, and Soviet as well as American and UN sources, the author has exploited previously ignored or neglected oral history collections, including interviews with American and South Korean officers, and has made extensive use of reports based on interrogations of North Korean and Chinese POWs.^ The end result is a work that provides both a gripping narrative and a greater understanding of this key conflict in international and American history.

In 1914, the armies and navies that faced each other were alike down to the strengths of their companies and battalions and the designs of their battleships and cruisers. Differences were of degree rather than essence. During the interwar period, the armed forces grew increasingly asymmetrical, developing different approaches to the same problems. This study of major military innovations in the 1920s and 1930s explores differences in innovating exploitation by the six major military powers. The comparative essays investigate how and why innovation occurred or did not occur, and explain much of the strategic and operational performance of the Axis and Allies in World War II. The essays focus on several instances of how military services developed new technology and weapons and incorporated them into their doctrine, organization, and styles of operations.

"Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett analyze the operations and tactics that defined the conduct of the war in both the European and Pacific theaters. Moving between the war room and the battlefield, we see how strategies were crafted and revised and how the multitudes of combat troops struggled to discharge their orders. The authors present incisive portraits of military leaders on both sides of the conflict, demonstrating the ambiguities they faced, the opportunities they seized, and those they missed. Throughout, we see the relationship between the actual operations of the war and their political and moral implications.". "A War To Be Won is the culmination of decades of research by two of America's premier military historians. It avoids a celebratory view of the war but preserves a profound respect for the problems the Allies faced and overcame, as well as a realistic assessment of the Axis accomplishments and failures. It is the essential military history of World War II - from the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to the surrender of Japan in 1945 - for students, scholars, and general readers alike."--BOOK JACKET.