Origins of the North Korean Garrison State: The People’s Army and the Korean War. By Youngjun Kim. New York: Routledge, 2018. xxii, 248 p [ISBN: 9781137842157]

Abstract

The Korean War (1950-1953) is generally seen as the first major clash of the global Cold War, and as such, it has received broad attention in scholarly circles. Its military and political aspects – mainly those involving the three powers, the USA, the USSR, and China – have been well covered in scholarship throughout the decades. Yet only since the last decade of the twentieth century, thanks to the end of the Cold War, the declassifying of archival materials in Russia, and the growing of attention and treatment by scholars from China, the field has gained new insights and perspectives about this civil war that had quickly escalated into a global war. Although the crucial role of China in that war received the important attention of works in recent years thus enhancing the role of the powers of that time, ironically, the Korean bellicose sides have been predominantly perceived and treated as minor players. Bruce Cuming’s classic two volume work about the Korean War (The Origins of the Korean War) set an important course in the scholarship for uncovering local and broader aspects. In this sense, Kim Youngjun has succeeded not only in