The Ashgate Research Companion to the Korean War

At best, encyclopedias of wars and historiographical volumes of the same are dull compendiums of information and ideas that provide useful references to buffs, fact-checkers, and non-specialists. This volume of 32 essays focusing on the historiography of the Korean War is much more. Senior scholars James I. Matray, a diplomatic historian, and Donald W. Boose, Jr., a military historian, have produced a book that not only will inform members of the general reading public interested in the war but will also inform and engage historians with considerable expertise in the early Cold War. At minimum, the essay authors effectively describe the secondary literature and sources available on the topics assigned to them; at most they provide insights on the strengths and limitations of that literature (based in part on their own research) and suggest avenues for future study. Rather than attempt summaries of all 32 essays in the volume, I...