Following his prizewinning studies of the Vietnam War, renowned anthropologist Heonik Kwon presents this ground-breaking study of the Korean War’s enduring legacies seen through the realm of intimate human experience. Kwon boldly reclaims kinship as a vital category in historical and political enquiry and probes the grey zone between the modern and the traditional (and … [Read More]
Booklist: 1960-1993 (page 3)
Samsung Rising: Inside the secretive company conquering Tech
From the publisher’s website: Based on years of reporting on Samsung for the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Time from his base in South Korea, and his countless sources inside and outside the company, Geoffrey Cain offers the first deep look behind the curtains of the biggest company nobody knows. How has this happened? Forty years ago, Samsung was … [Read More]
Born of This Land: My Life Story
Born of This Land: My Life Story is an English translation of the Chung Ju-yung’s autobiography. Chung ju-yung is the founding chairman of the Hyundai Group. The story begins with the escape from his home to the beginning of Chung’s first auto repair shop. Source: listing on Han Books [Read More]
Korean Memories and Psycho-Historical Fragmentation
From the publisher’s website: This pioneering book is the first English volume on Korean memories. In it, Mikyoung Kim introduces ‘psycho-historical fragmentation’, a concept that explains South Korea’s mnemonic rupture as a result of living under intense temporal, psychological and physical pressure. As Korean society has undergone transformation at unusual speed and intensity, so has … [Read More]
Revisiting Minjung: New Perspectives on the Cultural History of 1980s South Korea
From the publisher’s website: An epoch-marking alliance of laborers, students, dissident intellectuals, and ordinary citizens was at the heart of South Korea’s transformation from a dictatorship into a vibrant democracy during the 1980s. Collectively known as the minjung (“the people”), these agents of Korean democratization historically carved out an expanded role for civil society in the country’s … [Read More]
Top-Down Democracy in South Korea
From the publisher’s website: While popular movements in South Korea rightly grab the headlines for forcing political change and holding leaders to account, those movements are only part of the story of the construction and practice of democracy. In Top-Down Democracy in South Korea, Erik Mobrand documents another part – the elite-led design and management of … [Read More]
Beyond Death: the politics of suicide and martyrdom in Korea
From the publisher’s website: Suicide and martyrdom are closely intertwined with Korean social and political processes. In this first book-length study of the evolving ideals of honorable death and martyrdom from the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910) to contemporary South Korea, interdisciplinary essays explore the changing ways in which Korean historical agents have considered what constitutes a … [Read More]
The Park Chung Hee Era: Economic Development and Modernization of the Republic of Korea
From the publisher’s website: This volume presents a collection of authoritative summaries and analyses of the most significant economic policies of the Park Chung Hee years (1961–1979). It is the product of a major project by Korean academics and officials to critically review and analyze policies aimed at economic development and modernization of Korea. Most … [Read More]
Cultures of Yusin: South Korea in the 1970s
From the publisher’s website: A broad range of scholars explores the many avenues of cultural production during the Yusin period, casting new light on how it challenged and conformed to the ambitions of the state power. Cultures of Yusin examines the turbulent and yet deeply formative period of time South Korea’s Fourth Republic (1972-79), beginning with … [Read More]
Rationality in the North Korean Regime: Understanding the Kims’ Strategy of Provocation
From the publisher’s website: How and why are the Kims rational? There is no consensus about either the Kims’ rationality or how best to determine if they are rational actors. Rationality in the North Korean Regime offers a concise and finite method to assess rationality by examining over ten cases of provocations from the Korean War to … [Read More]
Drums of War, Drums of Development: The Formation of a Pacific Ruling Class and Industrial Transformation in East and Southeast Asia, 1945-1980
In Drums of War, Drums of Development, Jim Glassman analyses the geopolitical economy of industrial development in East and Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era, showing how it was shaped by the collaborative planning of US and Asian elites. Challenging both neo-liberal and neo-Weberian accounts of East Asian development, Glassman offers evidence that the growth … [Read More]
Conscience in Action: The Autobiography of Kim Dae-jung
From the publisher’s website: This book is an English translation of the authoritative autobiography by the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. The 2000 Nobel Peace Prize winner, often called the Asian Nelson Mandela, is best known for his tolerant and innovative “Sunshine Policy” towards North Korea. Written in the five years between the end … [Read More]
Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom
Patriots, Traitors and Empires is an account of modern Korean history, written from the point of view of those who fought to free Korea from the domination of foreign empires. It traces the history of Korea’s struggle for freedom from opposition to Japanese colonialism starting in 1905 to North Korea’s current efforts to deter the threat … [Read More]
From Miracle to Mirage: The Making and Unmaking of the Korean Middle Class, 1960-2015
From the publisher’s website: Myungji Yang’s From Miracle to Mirage is a critical account of the trajectory of state-sponsored middle-class formation in Korea in the second half of the twentieth century. Yang’s book offers a compelling story of the reality behind the myth of middle-class formation. Capturing the emergence, reproduction, and fragmentation of the Korean middle class, From … [Read More]
The Scorpion
From the publisher’s website: In mainstream literature, it is not unusual to find a great novel whose themes are simultaneously universal and local. humanity and the human condition can be represented through characters and events that reflect the environment of an author living in a specific time and place. In the case of The Scorpion, … [Read More]
Rethinking Asia’s Economic Miracle: The Political Economy of War, Prosperity and Crisis
From the publisher’s website: In the new edition of this important contribution to understanding both the Asian economic miracle and the 1997-8 crisis, Richard Stubbs assesses the main explanations to date and updates the analysis to take account of globalization and the remarkable economic rise of China. Table of Contents Introduction The Old Order and … [Read More]