London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Korea Witness: 135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm

Publisher description: This book follows the long journey of correspondents who have passed through Korea. Since the first of them, photographer Felice Beato, arrived in 1871 with American troops invading Kangwha Island, foreign journalists have puzzled over this land, as complicated and fascinating now as 135 years ago. Famed author Jack London grappled with a … [Read More]

Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea

From the publisher’s website: This pathbreaking study presents a feminist analysis of the politics of membership in the South Korean nation over the past four decades. Seungsook Moon examines the ambitious effort by which South Korea transformed itself into a modern industrial and militarized nation. She demonstrates that the pursuit of modernity in South Korea … [Read More]

Trees on a Slope

Hwang Sun-won (1915-2000) is one of modern Korea’s masters of narrative prose. Trees on a Slope (1960) is his most accomplished novel – one of the few Korean novels to describe in detail the physical and psychological horrors of the Korean War. It is an assured, forceful depiction of three young soldiers in the South … [Read More]

The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950

From the publisher’s website: North Korea, despite a shattered economy and a populace suffering from widespread hunger, has outlived repeated forecasts of its imminent demise. Charles K. Armstrong contends that a major source of North Korea’s strength and resiliency, as well as of its flaws and shortcomings, lies in the poorly understood origins of its … [Read More]

Evening Glow

From the publisher’s website: In 1948 a small town in South Korea was seized by communists. A lowly butcher, enthralled by the idea that the downtrodden could take power, became a hero of the people’, slaughtering opponents with unrivalled cruelty, all witnessed by his eleven year old son, Kapsu. Now forty and living in Seoul, … [Read More]

Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea

From the publisher’s website: In the half century after 1945, South Korea went from an impoverished, largely rural nation ruled by a succession of authoritarian regimes to a prosperous, democratic industrial society. No less impressive was the country’s transformation from a nation where a majority of the population had no formal education to one with … [Read More]

Remembering Korea 1950 A Boy Soldier’s Story

From the publisher’s website: Hyung K. Shin was sixteen years old when the North Korean army invaded South Korea in June 1950. Fleeing his home, Shin soon found himself alone in Pusan, a refugee without resources or any means of support. To save himself from destitution, he lied about his age and volunteered for service … [Read More]

War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War

From the publisher’s website: A comparison of the cultural and political/institutional dimensions of war’s impact on Greece during the Peloponnesian War, and the United States and the two Koreas, North and South, during the Korean War. It demonstrates the many underlying similarities between the two wars. Table of Contents Introduction / David R. McCann and … [Read More]

Remembering the Forgotten War: The Korean War Through Literature and Art

From the publisher’s website: In contrast to the many books that use military, diplomatic, and historic language in analyzing the Korean War, this book takes a cultural approach that emphasizes the human dimension of the war, an approach that especially features Korean voices. There are chapters on Korean art on the war, translations into English … [Read More]

Submarine Commander: A Story of World War II and Korea

From the publisher’s website: A fascinating personal memoir of underwater combat in World War II, told by a man who played a major role in those dangerous operations. Frank and beautifully written, Submarine Commander‘s breezy style and irrepressible humor place it in a class by itself. This book will be of lasting value as a submarine … [Read More]

The Ilse: First-Generation Korean Immigrants in Hawaii, 1903-1973

From the publisher’s website: On January 13, 1903, the first Korean immigrants arrived in Hawai’i. Numbering a little more than a hundred individuals, this group represented the initial wave of organized Korean immigration to Hawai’i. Over the next two and a half years, nearly 7,500 Koreans would make the long journey eastward across the Pacific. … [Read More]

Made in Korea: Chung Ju Yung and the Rise of Hyundai

From the publisher’s website: American business folklore is awash with the adventures of successful entrepreneurs. Still, most of these stories are about Americans, neglecting important and courageous entrepreneurs from other countries. Made in Korea recounts the story of how Chung Ju Yung rose from poverty to build one of the world’s largest and most successful … [Read More]

The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea

From the publisher’s website: The United States and Biological Warfare argues persuasively that the United States experimented with and deployed biological weapons during the Korean War. Endicott and Hagerman explore the political and moral dimensions of this issue, asking what restraints were applied or forgotten in those years of ideological and political passion and military … [Read More]

A Korean Nationalist Entrepreneur: A Life History of Kim Songsu, 1891–1955

From the publisher’s website: During the period of Japanese domination, Kim Songsu emerged as one of Korea’s leading cultural nationalists. This life history details his contribution to the self-strengthening programs moderate nationalists advocated as the foundation for Korea’s independence. “Choong Soon Kim’s well-written book weaves a history of Korean capitalism and a history of an … [Read More]

The Descendants of Cain

Hwang Sun-won, perhaps the most beloved and respected Korean writer of the 20th century, based this extraordinary novel on his own experiences in his North Korean home village between the end of World War II and the eve of the Korean War when Korea had been divided into North and South by its two “liberators” … [Read More]

Korean Dynasty: Hyundai and Chung Ju Yung

From the publisher’s website: This study focuses on a single Korean “chaebol”, the business conglomerate which dominates the Korean economy. Hyundai, the largest chaebol, is examined in the context of Korean history, ancient and modern, and the Confucian value system that permeates all Korean life. [Read More]