Extraordinary political and economic changes have rocked the Republic of Korea over the past fifty years. John Oh, a Korean-born political scientist, has written a clear and insightful account of government and politics throughout this turbulent period. His chronological and thematic study analyzes both the conflicts between authoritarian forces and populist/democratic elements and the nation’s … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 45)
Description and Explanation in Korean Linguistics
This volume brings together fifteen new papers on Korean linguistics originally presented at the Ninth International Conference on Korean Linguistics, 1994. Contributions range from phonetics and phonology, to syntax and grammaticalization, and address important theoretical issues from a wide variety of formal frameworks. The volume contains new research by established scholars like Gregory Iverson, Young-key … [Read More]
Developmental Mindset: The Revival of Financial Activism in South Korea
The Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 was supposed to be the death knell for the developmental state. The International Monetary Fund supplied emergency funds for shattered economies but demanded that states liberalize financial markets and withdraw from direct involvement in the economy. Financial liberalization was meant to spell the end of strategic industry policy and … [Read More]
A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks
After more than two years of bitter negotiations during which combatants & civilians continued to suffer casualties, the Korean armistice was concluded in July 1953. Focusing on the Americans formulation of negotiating positions & on their attempts to coordinate political goals with military tactics, Rosemary Foot here charts the tortuous path to peace & offers … [Read More]
Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea
Do the pressures of economic globalization undermine the welfare state? Contrary to the expectations of many analysts, Taiwan and South Korea have embarked on a new trajectory, toward a strengthened welfare state and universal inclusion. In Healthy Democracies, Joseph Wong offers a political explanation for health care reform in these two countries. He focuses specifically on the … [Read More]
MacArthur in Asia: The General and His Staff in the Philippines, Japan, and Korea
“Hiroshi Masuda reinterprets MacArthur by going back to his years in the Philippines. In particular, [the book] focuses on the ‘Bataan Boys,’ the group of subordinates who accompanied MacArthur in his 1942 evacuation from the Philippines, and their views of MacArthur. MacArthur in Asia offers valuable insights into not only MacArthur’s public persona but also … [Read More]
Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Government Accountability in Japan and South Korea
Government wrongdoing or negligence harms people worldwide, but not all victims are equally effective at obtaining redress. In Accidental Activists, Celeste L. Arrington examines the interactive dynamics of the politics of redress to understand why not. Relatively powerless groups like redress claimants depend on support from political elites, active groups in society, the media, experts, lawyers, … [Read More]
Making and Faking Kinship: Marriage and Labor Migration between China and South Korea
In the years leading up to and directly following rapprochement with China in 1992, the South Korean government looked to ethnic Korean (Chosǒnjok) brides and laborers from northeastern China to restore productivity to its industries and countryside. South Korean officials and the media celebrated these overtures not only as a pragmatic solution to population problems … [Read More]
Think No Evil: Korean Values in the Age of Globalization
In this investigation of the contemporary notion of evil, C. Fred Alford asks what we can learn about this concept, and about ourselves, by examining a society where it is unknown—where language contains no word that equates to the English term “evil.” Does such a society look upon human nature more benignly? Do its members … [Read More]
Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era
In Privilege and Anxiety, Hagen Koo examines what has happened to the Korean middle class in the era of rapid globalization and demonstrates that the middle class has experienced significant changes in its social character. The middle classes in most advanced economies today are frequently described as being “squeezed” and “shrinking.” Globalization has inserted an “axis … [Read More]
Dying for Rights: Putting North Korea’s Human Rights Abuses on the Record
North Korea’s human rights violations are unparalleled in the contemporary world. In Dying for Rights, Sandra Fahy provides the definitive account of the abuses committed by the North Korean state, domestically and internationally, from its founding to the present. Dying for Rights scrutinizes North Korea’s treatment of its own people as well as foreign nationals, … [Read More]
Fearing the Worst: How Korea Transformed the Cold War
After World War II, the escalating tensions of the Cold War shaped the international system. Fearing the Worst explains how the Korean War fundamentally changed postwar competition between the United States and the Soviet Union into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Samuel F. Wells Jr. examines how military and political events interacted to escalate the … [Read More]
A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1949-1976: Revised Edition
Revised and Corrected Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia Today, the People’s Republic of China is North Korea’s only ally on the world stage, a tightly knit relationship that goes back decades. Both countries portray their partnership as one of “brotherly affection” based on shared political ideals—an alliance “as tight as lips to teeth”—even though relations … [Read More]
Homing: An Affective Topography of Ethnic Korean Return Migration
Millions of ethnic Koreans have been driven from the Korean Peninsula over the course of the region’s modern history. Emigration was often the personal choice of migrants hoping to escape economic and political hardship, but it was also enforced or encouraged by governmental relocation and migration projects in both colonial and postcolonial times. The turning … [Read More]
Imaging Migration in Post-War Britain: Artists of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese Heritage
This book examines the artistic practices of a range of British-based artists of East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese) heritage in order to consider the social, political and cultural effects of migration or diaspora upon their creative production. Beccy Kennedy-Schtyk demonstrates three themes: the multiplicity and expansive contemporaneity of these artists’ visual oeuvres; the … [Read More]
A History of Protestantism in Korea
This book provides a comprehensive overview of Protestant Christianity in Korea. It outlines the development of Christianity in Korea before Protestantism, considers the introduction of Protestantism in the late nineteenth century and its widening and profound impact, and goes on to discuss the situation up to the present. Throughout the book emphasises the importance of … [Read More]