Soldiers’ History Writing and the American War in Korea

In this lecture, Professor of Military History Tarak Barkawi, from Johns Hopkins University, takes the audience back to the Korean War (1950-1953).

This lecture is part of a project which anatomizes how soldiers and commanders produced military histories from their war experiences, with respect to the US in the decisive moments of the Korean War. Part of a long-standing and varied genre, “battle historiography” was an important form of mediation between warfront and home front in the twentieth century US.

Soldiers participated both in war and in the production of histories about it, an overlap which characterizes battle  historiography generally. For US Korean War veterans, how did their participation in history writing negotiate experiences of defeat and military reverse at the hands of an enemy regarded as racially inferior? What tropes, narratives, and silences did they make available to military and civilian readers? What were the differences and similarities with comparable moments in Western battle historiography? What do the answers to these questions tell us about how the Korean War affected society through its military historiographical mediation? 

Lecture open to all 

All are welcome to attend. No registration is required. If you are interested in receiving a paper about the lecture in advance, you can request it by writing to: nordic@hum.ku.dk.

The lecture will be held in English.