The New York Times Book Review - Gordon G. Chang
In unforgettable fashion, Hanley, a Pulitzer Prize winner, tells the story of the Korean War, one of the most savage conflicts in history, through eyewitness accounts of 20 people, most of them victims.
Publishers Weekly
★ 06/01/2020
In this sweeping and well-sourced history, Associated Press reporter Hanley (coauthor, The Bridge at No Gun Ri), who won a Pulitzer Prize for helping to unearth the 1950 massacre of South Korean civilians by panicked U.S. troops, captures the devastating human toll of the Korean War. The epic scale of the war’s disruption comes into focus through the stories of a survivor of the 1950 slaughter, who lost both her children to American bullets; a Maryknoll nun and physician who tended to refugees in the beleaguered southern port of Pusan, where Allied troops were nearly forced into the sea in the first weeks of the war; and a North Korean pilot who survived dogfights in “MiG Alley.” Hanley also profiles the U.S., Chinese, and North Korean military leaders who directed wild swings of momentum in the war’s early months, and, later, the grinding trench warfare that cost tens of thousands of lives as truce talks dragged on. Drawing on memoirs, personal letters, declassified documents, and interviews with veterans and civilian survivors, as well as newspaper accounts from AP reporter Bill Shinn and his counterpart on the communist side, Daily Worker journalist Alan Winnington, Hanley paints an extraordinary portrait of the war’s complexity and devastation. This is an essential account of America’s “forgotten war.” (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"A masterly new history...the accretion of astounding detail makes for a vivid, multilayered look at a deeply complicated war in which few emerged as heroic. A top-notch addition to the literature on the Korean War."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"An extraordinary kaleidoscope of human experiences in a catastrophic forgotten war."—Library Journal Starred Review
"Hanley paints an extraordinary portrait of the war's complexity and devastation. This is an essential account of America's "forgotten war."—Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"In unforgettable fashion, Hanley, a Pulitzer Prize winner, tells the story of the Korean War, one of the most savage conflicts in history."—The New York Times Book Review
"Mr. Hanley's granular approach, which makes such compelling reading."—The Wall Street Journal
"Ghost Flames is a masterful, often brutal representation of the Korean War. Readers with a limited knowledge of the conflict will gain a deeper understanding of the complexities cast upon ordinary people, from the soldiers who fought to the civilians trying to escape. This historical account revitalizes old memories and provides an outlet for healing from the traumatic events suffered by the victims. It leaves the reader with the unmistakable realization that this unpopular war should not be forgotten."—Coffee or Die
“The book is a fast and engrossing haunting read that thoroughly educates while pulling on the heart strings.”—The New York Journal of Books
"Hanley's genius is to tell this remarkable story from the perspective of twenty very different participants—ranging from a general to a grunt, from a refugee to a p.o.w. By deep reportorial digging and gripping in-the-moment narration, he has woven together the saga—sometimes heroic, often disturbing—of an enigmatic war as it really was."—Evan Thomas, author of Sea of Thunder and Ike's Bluff
"The stories of twenty people who lived through the Korean War are told with such skill that I grew to care about every one of them. Ghost Flames is an unforgettable depiction of the effect of war on ordinary people, and a stunning achievement."—Linda Sue Park, NYTimes bestselling author and Newbery Medalist
"Charles Hanley has written a people's history of the Korean War, a fascinating, illuminating and highly readable work that opens a new window on the experiences of ordinary people in a critically important, but mostly unknown, war. His narrative is unflinching in recounting the war's horrors, the crimes by all sides. Readers will learn much that is entirely new."—Bruce Cumings, Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History, University of Chicago, author of The Korean War: A History
"Through the prism of twenty different lives - from a child, a solider, a journalist - Hanley gives us an immensely moving portrait of a war that has still not yet ended. With its unblinking and evocative storytelling of the experiences of those who often go nameless in American accounts of the war, Ghost Flames is unlike any other book on the Korean War. It is, in essence, a close and intimate story of the first US war of intervention in the Cold War era, one that forces us to examine the violent wake of wars the United States has generated since. Building from his previous award-winning journalism on civilian massacres committed by the US military, Hanley raises the urgent question of why the Korean War is forgotten in the United States and reveals the enormous costs that have come with this constant forgetting."—Monica Kim, Assistant Professor, Department of History New York University
PRAISE FOR THE BRIDGE AT NO GUN RI:
"[A] truly heart-wrenching tale of survival and heroism...This is an inspiring book — storytelling at its very, very best. Read it."
—Doug Stanton, author of In Harm's Way
"[I]n a class to stand with such work as Hersey's Hiroshima and Keneally's Schindler's List...Powerful history."—Sydney Schanberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Death and Life of Dith Pran, basis of the film The Killing Fields
"A wrenching story."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"This account, expanded from their Pulitzer Prize-winning reportage, raises questions about military preparedness and civilian involvement that are as relevant today as they were a half a century ago."—The New Yorker
"A sober and absorbing account of a very dark chapter in American military history...Meticulously researched, scrupulously fair, and exceptionally well-written...Fine reading and fine history."—Rick Atkinson, author of The Long Gray Line
Library Journal
★ 05/01/2020
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hanley (The Bridge at No Gun Ri) was on the team that in 1999 broke the story of a U.S. military massacre of fleeing Korean civilians 50 years earlier. Hanley is back with an equally compelling and groundbreaking narrative history of the Korean War, told via the experiences of 20 men and women who lived through the bloodshed. Commanding generals Matt Ridgway (U.S.) and Peng Teh-huai (China) direct strategy and play politics. British Marxist reporter Alan Winnington reports from the Communist side of the battlefield, while Bill Shinn publishes scoops from behind U.S.-South Korean lines. African American soldier Clarence Adams survives prisoner-of-war camp and ultimately defects to China, inspired by the Communist message of racial equality. Chi Chao-chu resigns his studies at Harvard University, hastening home to Communist China to translate at armistice negotiations, while student Ahn Kyong-hee evades sexual assault and other dangers, helped by a South Korean double agent. Ri In-mo goes from bespectacled Communist Party functionary to mountain guerilla to political prisoner. Meanwhile, this fruitless war of attrition forever alters the course of both Koreas and leads to the death of millions. VERDICT An extraordinary kaleidoscope of human experiences in a catastrophic forgotten war.—Michael Rodriguez, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2020-02-05
A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist forges a masterly new history of the Korean War through character studies of the participants caught in the conflict.
During his 40-year career at the Associated Press, Hanley reported from nearly 100 countries around the world, and his journalistic talents are on full display in his latest book. He also demonstrates a novelist’s touch and a wonderful ear for dialogue and detail. He builds his history via observers’ testimonies about the war, from the initial invasion of South Korea by North Korean troops on June 25, 1950, to the stunning “morning of silent guns” on July 28, 1953. The characters Hanley chooses to highlight aptly represent the diversity of people involved, from refugees and soldiers on both sides to U.S. military leaders like Matthew Ridgway, appointed Far East commander by Harry Truman after certain miscalculations by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In countless poignant snapshots, the author describes harrowing, often horrific experiences, including those of Sister Mary Mercy at a clinic in Pusan, where “sanitation is abysmal and disease endemic,” and “existing facilities fall far short of what’s needed to deal with the typhoid, typhus, smallpox, and tuberculosis spreading through the refugee population”; and South Korean AP journalist Bill Shinn, who tried to cover the conflict while protecting his family. Elsewhere, Hanley discusses numerous witnesses to the horrendous retaliation by both North and South Korean troops in terms of executions and mass burials as well as American troops’ “depravity” in torturing and raping the local population. The author also details the conditions at the POW camps, including Pyoktong, where a black American soldier endured not only an existence of “simple misery,” but also racist taunts from fellow American soldiers in the camp. In addition to excellent maps and a chronology, Hanley provides photos of the characters and an “After the War” section about each of them. The accretion of astounding detail makes for a vivid, multilayered look at a deeply complicated war in which few emerged as heroic.
A top-notch addition to the literature on the Korean War.
