S amuel F. W ells J r . Fearing the Worst

Ever since the publication of Robert Jervis’s seminal article “The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War” more than forty years ago, historians have noted how this conflict played a pivotal role in the evolution of US national-security policy, ushering in a new era of big defense budgets, giving a vital boost to the budding NATO alliance, and encouraging the Truman administration to extend commitments to other perceived threatened areas (see Jervis, “The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 24, no. 4 [1980]: 563–92). The great strength of Samuel F. Wells’s vivid and comprehensive study, Fearing the Worst: How Korea Transformed the Cold War, is that it provides an excellent and accessible account of these developments, covering all the major players from the United States to the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, utilizing accounts based on documents that have...

Alliance · China · Cold war · Economic history · Political science · Politics · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies