Did you ever know someone whose birthday was very close to Christmas, either just after or just before? They always complain that their birthday celebration gets overshadowed by their family’s Christmas celebration. In some respects, the Korean War is in such a situation. With its start only being about five years after the end of World War II, when the world and the United States were still recovering from that global conflict, the Korean War did not attract great attention and it is not part of the American consciousness today. Perhaps it was in the 1950s but then the Vietnam War came along and dominated the American public’s thinking, displacing the Korean War.
However, the Korean War was important for several reasons. First, it was the beginning of a forceful response to the spread of communism and the dictatorship and mind control that is part of Marxist thinking. Second, it was the first test of the relatively new United Nations organization and, whatever it has become in the 21st century, it was a force for good in the early 1950s. Third, the consequence of the Korean War, even if it ended in stalemate, enabled millions of Korean people to live and develop in peace and Christianity to grow, so that South Korea is a prosperous republic today with millions of Christians, some of whose grandparents had fled south during the war. North Korea, to which the Marxists were confined by the war, today is still a brutal dictatorship that is spiritually poisonous and that abuses its own dirt-poor people. And fourth, the Korean conflict marked the first military intrusion onto the world stage of Communist China, whose leadership still threatens the world today.
The Korean War, by Tom McGowen, is a very nice 64-page book, published by Franklin Watts, which gives a clear overview of the Korean War. It is illustrated by original photographs and informative color maps. The book is well-written at an upper elementary to middle school level. A child who reads this book will have a sound basis for understanding the part this war has played in 20th century history and for the part this war continues to play in 21st century history, since North Korea and the Chinese Communist Party leadership are still in the news and in some ways are even more of a threat today than back in the early 1950s. An older child can go on to read the Korean War Landmark book, which gives more details. But learning about the Korean War through McGowen’s book will serve to begin to restore the important place in history that this conflict deserves in the minds of American children.