Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World

What was the Cold War? A simple definition might be: a 20th centuryinternational confrontation between the Soviet Union and the UnitedStates, which involved, first, Europe, and then Asia, Africa, and LatinAmerica, eventually dividing the world into two camps. The key playersin this global conflict are generally identified as a number ofhigh-ranking policymakers, including Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. We know this story. However, the full story is notso simple. It is time to change our ways of thinking about the Cold War. Masuda Hajimu's Cold War Crucible is an inquiry into this peculiar nature of the Cold War. It examinesnot only centers of policymaking, but seeming aftereffects of Cold Warpolitics during the Korean War: Suppression of counterrevolutionaries in China, the White Terror in Taiwan, the Red Purge in Japan, andMcCarthyism in the United States. Such purges were not merely endresults of the Cold War, Masuda argues, but forces that broughtthe Cold War into being, as ordinary people throughout the world stroveto silence disagreements and restore social order in the chaoticpost-WWII era under the mantle of an imagined global confrontation.Revealing social functions and popular participation, Cold War Crucible highlights ordinary people's roles in making and maintaining the"reality" of the Cold War, raising the question of what the Cold Warreally was. Read more