The Korean War: A Historical Dictionary (review)

No single academic has been more attentive and committed to the cause of education in the history of the Korean War than Paul M. Edwards, Graceland University, Independence, Missouri. Professor Edwards created his one-man Center for the Study of the Korean War, which benefits from its proximity to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. His books and articles on bibliographical and historiographical subjects are useful to all Korean War scholars.

The Korean War: A Historical Dictionary is not, however, competitive in a now-crowded field of similar works. Professor Edwards appears to be the sole author of the entries, unlike other historical dictionaries and Korean War encyclopedias. No one author can do justice to the subject. In this case, the author's interests exclude many potential entries about Korean (both sides), Russian, and Chinese participation. The entries themselves are good on basic facts, but are lean on significance and analysis. The bibliography, however, is useful, if dated and silent on non-English sources, even those available in translation. No Korean authors appear in the "Republic of Korea" bibliographical section.

Professor Edwards, a Korean War veteran himself, hurts his credibility with too many errors of fact and interpretation in his chronology and introductory essay. This is unfortunate—and casts doubt upon Scarecrow Press's review process—since Professor Edwards' readership of Korean War veterans needs to be disabused of some of their cherished misunderstandings. Edwards holds fast to the figure of total American deaths of 54,000 (20,000 "other") although it was changed by the Department of Defense in 2000 to 33,686 deaths in theater (2,830 "other" deaths). The author also holds fast to the dated belief that the war began on June 25, 1950, not in 1946 or 1948 when Communist terrorists and guerrillas battled the U.S. Army Occupation forces and their Korean allies. Surely, a conflict that takes at least 30,000 lives before June 1950 deserves to be called a "war."

The best single Korean War encyclopedia remains Spencer Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Korean War (3 vols., ABC-Clio, 20000), but for one-volume readers, James I. Matray, ed., Historical Dictionary of the Korean War (Greenwood Press, 1991) remains the best on political, biographical, and non-US subjects while Stanley Sandler, The Korean War (Garland, 1995) is the best encyclopedia on military-operational-weaponry subjects.