If Hajimu Masuda would consider a new subtitle for his book, he should remove “Korean Conflict” from it. To the degree that I can untangle his interlocking arguments, he believes the Cold War and Korean War are inadequate descriptors of the root causes of the international conflict and domestic oppression of the 1950s. On the other hand, the Korean War awakened and deepened popular fears of another global conflict, the violence of which would beggar World War II.
Masuda divides his book into three parts. The first section deals with the immediate postwar period, 1945–1950, as experienced by the United States, China, and Japan. This comparison of an undamaged and highly affluent victor in North America with two war-ravaged countries in Asia, including one that had dissolved into civil war, is far-fetched. In the second part, Masuda claims that Korean War–era mobilization policies in China and the United States created...