The greatest gift a work of history can give is to take a subject that you thought you knew something about and to show you that either your knowledge was far from extensive or it was fundamentally flawed. Years ago, Andrew Ayton and Philip Preston’s book on Crécy complicated the narrative of that battle to such a degree that I’m still reeling from the discovery. Bruce Cummings’ history of the Korean War has achieved a similar feat. This slim 250-page volume radically reframes the war in a way that challenged all my base assumptions about what I thought I knew and has made me think about the Korean War in a completely different way. I’m not sure that I will ever be the same. In complicating the war, Cummings’ digs up hard truths that many would prefer to forget, and which are largely absent from a bittersweet if essentially triumphalist narrative of the war that prevails in many other accounts. This book is essential reading, but at the same time I’m not sure if its impact can be felt as keenly if you haven’t already read at least one other book on the subject which makes me hesitate to recommend it as the best introductory history of the topic.