Numerous US documents on Korea, 1945-1953, are available in published form in the series US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1969-88). For numerous translated documents from China and the former Soviet Union, plus commentaries by leading scholars, see Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 3 (Fall 1993), 5 (Spring 1995), 8-9 (Winter 1996/97), and ii (Winter 1998). Evgeniy P. Bajanov and Natalia Bajanov, "The Korean Conflict, 19501953: The Most Mysterious War of the Twentieth Century - Based on Secret Soviet Archives,” is an unpublished manuscript, widely circulated among Korean War scholars, that includes lengthy quotations of documents (in English translation) from the Soviet Presidential Archives strung together by a spare narrative. For other Russian overviews, see Anatolii Torkunov, Zagadochnaia voina: koreiskii konflikt 1950-1953 godov [Mysterious War: The Korean Conflict 1950-1953] (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2000), and the official study made by the Soviet General Staff, Voina v Koree: 1950-1953 [War in Korea, 1950-1953] (St. Petersburg: Poligon, 2000). For materials in Chinese, see the entries in section ii of this bibliographical essay.
The best-known scholarly work on the origins and early stages of the war is Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981,1990). However, this magisterial study appeared before much documentation became available from the Soviet and Chinese sides. Cumings's criticism of the United States and Syngman Rhee remains defensible, but some of the analysis regarding interactions among the North Koreans, Chinese Communists, and the Soviet Union has been disproved. The argument that the war was essentially civil in nature is hotly contested, especially by William Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), ch. 3. Other important works on the origins of the war include James I. Matray, The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941-1950 (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), on the US side; Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005), and Soon Sung Cho, Korea in World Politics, 1940-1950 (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1967), on the US and South Korean sides; Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), and Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York: Macmillan, i960), on the Chinese side; Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), on the Chinese and Soviet sides; Erik Van Ree, Socialism in One Zone: Stalin’s Policy toward Korea, 1945-1947 (Oxford: Berg, 1989), and Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea 1945-1960 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), on the Soviet and North Korean sides; and Charles K. Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution 1945-1950 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), on the North Korean side.
For one-volume syntheses of the war, see Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), Burton Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (New York: Knopf, i986), Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 (New York: Times Books, 1987), and David Rees, Korea: The Limited War (New York: St. Martin's, i964), a classic. On the diplomacy of the war and its international implications, see William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, i995). For a briefer topical study, see Stueck's Rethinking the Korean War.
The best studies focusing on US policy during the war include Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950-1953 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, i985); Foot, A Substitute for Victory: The Politics ofPeacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990); Roger Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War," International Security, 13 (Winter 1988/89), 61-89; Marc Trachtenberg, "A 'Wasting Asset'? American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 19491954,” International Security, 13 (Winter 1988/89), 5-49; Conrad Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea 1950-1953 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000); and Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr., Truman and Korea: The Political Culture of the Early Cold War (Columbia,
MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999). See also Robert Jervis, "The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 24 (December 1980), 563-92.
For a comprehensive treatment of the Chinese side of the war, see Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995). ChenJian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), ch. 4, provides the most up-to-date treatment of China's strategy in the armistice talks. Zhang Xiaoming, Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea (College Station TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), covers the Communist side of the air war, especially the Chinese perspective.
For a collection of essays on the war by leading scholars with an editor's introduction and conclusion placing them in historiographical context, see William Stueck (ed.), The Korean War in World History (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2004). Particularly useful are Kathryn Weathersby's summary of "the state of historical knowledge" on the Soviet side, Chen Jian's chapter on China, and Michael Schaller's chapter on the impact of the war on Japan.
World History
