DAVID YEARSLEY is fascinated by the account of four composers who transformed their experiences of the second world war and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of art
The Hidden History of the Korean War
IF Stone, Monthly Review Press, Kindle: £10.99
JULY 27 2023 marked 70 years since the signing of the armistice agreement at Panmunjom, finally bringing about a cessation of hostilities in a war that was extraordinarily destructive but which has been largely ignored.
As Bruce Cumings writes in his preface to IF Stone’s classic The Hidden History of the Korean War — first published in 1952 and recently reissued by Monthly Review Press — the Korean war is a forgotten war, “remembered mainly as an odd conflict sandwiched between the good war (World War II) and the bad war (Vietnam).”
Stone’s meticulous investigation provides abundant proof that most of the key players in the US government and military actively wanted the Korean war; that it was the right war, in the right place and the right time in terms of US imperialist interests.
In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out
FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ says the US’s bullying conduct in what it considers its backyard is a bid to reassert imperial primacy over a rising China — but it faces huge resistance
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
The US’s bid for regime change in the Islamic Republic has become more urgent as it seeks to encircle and contain a resurgent China, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ


