Around Thanksgiving, 1950, while the rest of the country paid as little attention as possible, units of the Second Infantry Division were virtually annihilated by forces of the People’s Republic Army. It was a defeat which shocked an otherwise disinterested and distant nation. In The Coldest Winter, award-winning reporter and historian David Halberstam explodes this moment in time, using it as a jumping off point to delve into the Korean War’s particular horrors and triumphs. Using first-person interviews and detailed historical research, Halberstam exposes the truth about this underreported war by examining the geopolitics involved and also showing it from the vantage of the men whose poor fortune it was to be on history’s cutting edge. The book contains portrayals of ordinary soldiers as well as of McArthur, Eisenhower, and other major players.

David Halberstam was one of America's most distinguished journalists and historians. After graduating from Harvard in 1955, he covered the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, then was sent overseas by the New York Times to report on the war in Vietnam. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam reporting at the age of 30. His last fourteen books (which include THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST and Hyperion's FIREHOUSE and TEAMMATES) have all been New York Times bestsellers.