More than sixty years after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea, the Korean War is still not over--yet it has become a forgotten episode in American history. Now, Sheila Miyoshi Jager combines international events with previously unknown personal accounts to create a comprehensive new history of that war. From American, Korean, Soviet and Chinese perspectives, she explores its origins, development and global implications. The epic story begins in mid-World War II, when Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill fiercely debated the possibility of Korean independence, and ends in the present day as North Korea, with China's aid, starves its population as it stockpiles nuclear weapons. Drawing on newly available diplomatic archives in several nations, this is the first account to examine both the military and the social, cultural, and political aspect of the war and its impact.--From publisher description.