In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has
brought the war back home.---The New York Times
David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the
Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than
three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and
formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment
in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest
Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years
of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.
Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and
miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to
the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught
Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides
astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major
figures--Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals
MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us
with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling
the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever,
Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of
people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.
The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and
luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has
been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to
write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to
complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest
journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose
heroism it chronicles.
