Fearing the Worst

Reviews / Votes

A masterful study of one of America's most consequential and most forgotten wars. Samuel F. Wells Jr. weaves together astonishing stories of nuclear strategy and cut-throat bureaucracy in this must-read for anyone eager to understand how the Korean War changed the Cold War-and made the world what it is today. -- Graham Allison, Harvard University This excellent book offers new insights into how the Korean War laid the basis for today's military competition with Russia, China, and North Korea. Wells analyzes how decisions taken during the Korean conflict dramatically expanded NATO into the central institution that protected the West through the four decades of the Cold War. -- Alexander R. Vershbow, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and South Korea and Deputy Secretary General of NATO Wells tells the seldom understood story of how revolutionary the impact of Korea was on the nature and scale of the four-decade Cold War, and he does so with a masterful and definitive combination of detail, insight, new sources from both sides, and page-turning readability. -- Richard K. Betts, author of <i>American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security</i> How did the global Cold War come into being and remain cold? With the support of extensive, multi-archival, and insightful research, Samuel Wells has written an extremely important and nuanced book on the subject. It powerfully and convincingly demonstrates that the Korean War formed a critical turning point, redefining the actual trajectory or even essence of the Cold War that would engulf the two superpowers and prevail in the world in the ensuing four decades. -- Chen Jian, author of <i>Mao's China and the Cold War</i> Wells has drawn on a massive body of documentation and secondary literature from both sides in the Cold War to produce an impressive synthesis of its evolution through the Korean War. Fast paced and persuasively argued, Fearing the Worst should attract an audience well beyond academe. -- William Stueck, author of <i>Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic History</i> A magisterial new study using archives from all the key countries * New Statesman * This excellent monograph by Wells...describes how the Korean War transformed the US into a superpower. * Choice * Clear and engaging prose is a strength of this study. Wells deserves special praise not only for his extensive research in primary documents but also for his consultation of a long list of secondary works. * H-Diplo * It is wide ranging and deeply researched. -- Robert Jervis * Pacific Affairs * This is a valuable one-volume history that summarizes and updates the general understanding of the Korean War within Cold War history. * International Affairs * A major work about a critical moment...this book is a must-read not just for students and specialists of the early Cold War but anyone interested in the evolution of American national security policy. -- Steven Casey, London School of Economics and Political Science * American Historical Review * [A] masterful new book...Fearing the Worst is not just a history of the Korean War; it is also a history of politics and international relations during a watershed moment in the early Cold War. Happily, it is an exceptionally good history in all of those arenas. -- Mitch Lerner, Ohio State University * Journal of Military History *