Poignant, well-crafted, and emotional, this is an epic military experience and one man's personal journey¿a man who will gain your respect and heart.

I am more American than Korean in my mind, writes K. Connie Kang, "but am more Korean than American in my soul. As for my heart, it is split in half."

Over the last half-century, the Korean Peninsula has become a region that has stolen attention from all over the world. The world villagers have started to recognize Korea is not just a nation in the corner, but a ring of fire that could threaten their peace and safety directly or indirectly. So the concern about the conflict between the North and the South, from the Japanese rule to the Korean War to the Kim family era ━ Kim Il-sung, Kim Jung-il, and Kim Jong-un ━ to the abruptly bulged-out nuclear problem has grown bigger and bigger. So if anyone who wants to sympathize and look deeper into peace and danger beyond Asia to the globe needs to know about the heated Korean Peninsula first. And the readers of this book can learn the messages of Yin and Yang and Tragedy and Hope that are hard to find in other books.

Manifest Destiny is a novel that is based largely on events that took place during the Korean War in the early 1950’s. Conflict, romance, mystery, the stigma associated with mental illness and humorous events take place. The cultural characteristics of the era, and especially those of the small towns of Canada and home of the main protagonist, are portrayed. The lives of the principal characters before, during and after the war are described. Peter Farley, the main protagonist, becomes romantically involved with several women, and especially with an American nurse in Korea. The Soviet Embassy in Ottawa recruits a Canadian communist fellow traveller to spy on Canadian Forces in Korea and his identity remains a mystery until near the end of the book. Combat occurs against the Chinese and North Korean communist forces in Korea. Peter Farley becomes a prisoner of war and returns to Canada to a difficult and uncertain future because his mind has been damaged by torture that he endured while in captivity.

"25 Albertype plates from photographs of Korea by Percival Lowell. Forbes Albertype Co., Boston, did the plates. This copy also contains two handwritten notes by Lowell laid in. One is of autobiograhical interest as Lowell gives a short resume in his career to this date. The pictures by him, as reproduced by the Forbes company, are striking and the tonal range of the collotypes is particularly effective in this book." -- Hanson collection catalog, p. 88.

Smell the Gunpowder: The Land of the Morning Calm is inspired by true events and veterans’ firsthand accounts of Americans who served in Korea. Because of these veterans, the Republic of Korea remains a free sovereign nation and one of the strongest and wealthiest countries in Asia. Today, North Korea continues to have a nuclear arsenal and is one of the most militarized countries in the world—creating a critical security challenge. Concerns about North Korea and its intentions remain at the highest level since the end of the 1950s and 1960s Korean Conflicts. South Korea has urged the United States and North Korea to formally reach a peace agreement ending the decades-long conflict. The outcome of a peace agreement is uncertain, and Smell the Gunpowder makes no pretense of providing the complete account of the undeclared, unconventional struggles that have gripped Korea since 1945, although it may serve to refocus attention on a most intriguing chapter in the annals of American and Korean history.