This Is War - A Photo Narrative Of The Korean War

A war with no good soundtrack and terrible weather, seen by a man who stood far too close with a camera.

This Is War – A Photo Narrative of the Korean War (Little, Brown and Company, 1990) by David Douglas Duncan is exactly what it says on the tin: not a history, not a strategy seminar, but one long, relentless look at what war actually looks like when you’re in the mud instead of on the map. Duncan, ex-Marine and legendary photojournalist, points his lens at foxholes, frozen hillsides and exhausted faces and quietly refuses to look away.

This is Korea from ground level:

• Marines in their twenties wearing expressions that belong on people much, much older.

• Rain, mud, snow, ice – the full “climate hates you personally” package.

• Moments of dark humour and sheer absurdity wedged between terror, boredom and bad coffee.

• No glamour, no heroics on a pedestal – just people trying to get through the next day without being killed.

The images build a narrative that prose can only circle around: shivering figures hunched in trenches, sudden violence, silent aftermaths, faces lit by cigarettes and artillery flashes. There are captions and context, but mostly Duncan lets the photographs do the talking, which is unfortunate for anyone who prefers their wars abstract, tidy and comfortably distant.

This copy comes to you via Crappy Old Books, graded Condition: Good, which in our happily unmilitary system means:

• The dust jacket (if present) shows honest shelfwear: light rubbing, a few edge nicks – more “shuffled around civilian bookshelves” than “went ashore at Inchon.”

• The boards beneath are solid and square, unlike several of the structures depicted inside.

• The pages are clean, tight and only gently toned: think “overcast field-grey” rather than “archive emergency.”

• Minor scuffs, softened corners and maybe a discreet previous owner’s name are classified as non-combat damage and are included at no extra charge.

Special bonus feature:

• Includes additional photos of DDD and Mike in an envelope at the back. That’s right: tucked into this already haunting volume is a little extra time capsule – personal shots of Duncan and “Mike” (one of his most famous Marine subjects), adding a small, human postscript to the official sequence. Call it an unofficial appendix in genuine photographic form.

ISBN: 9780316195652, for the cataloguer who likes their anti-glamour war books precisely logged.

Recommended if:

• You’ve had quite enough of war described as “theatre” and would like to remove the curtains.

• You think history should occasionally show you the faces behind the footnotes.

• You want a book that visitors will pick up thinking “Oh, photographs!” and put down a little quieter than before.

This Is War – A Photo Narrative of the Korean War: no flags, no fanfare, just men, mud, fear and friendship, captured by a photographer who knew exactly what he was looking at. In Good used condition, with that extra envelope of images at the back, ready to sit on your shelf as a stubborn, monochrome reminder of what those bland words “conflict” and “campaign” really mean.

Keep browsing: See more War books Other books by David Douglas Duncan