Korea: Outline of a Civilisation

From the publisher’s website:

This outline of Korea’s civilisation is a cultural history that examines the ways the Korean people over the past two millennia understood the world and viewed their place in society. In the traditional era, the interaction between several broad religious and philosophical traditions and social institutions, state interests and, at times, external pressures, provides the framework of the story. In the modern era, the chief concern is with the rapid and momentous cultural changes that have occurred over the past one and a half centuries in the idea and spread of education, the rise in influence of students, the development of mass culture, the redefinition of gender, and the continuing importance of religion.

Kenneth Wells, Ph.D. (1985), Australian National University, is a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. He has published monographs and numerous articles on Korean history, including New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea,1896-1937 (Allen & Unwin, 1991).

Contents

1. From Tribes to Monarchies
2. Buddhism, Confucianism and the People
3. The Grand Tradition i: The Pillars of Orthodoxy
4. The Grand Tradition ii: The Other Side of Orthodoxy
5. The Tradition Under Siege
6. The Nation in Question
7. A Nation Divided, 1945–1990
8. Civilisation, North and South, 1945–1990s
9. Unfinished Business