An American soldier’s life spirals out of control after he makes a fateful discovery on the Korean DMZ and then falls in love with a beautiful brothel courtesan whose tragic past becomes entwined in a volatile confrontation with Communist North Korea. It’s the 1960s, the Vietnam conflict is raging, and a delicate Korean armistice threatens … [Read More]
Booklist: Modern History (page 2)
Border of Water and Ice: The Yalu River and Japan’s Empire in Korea and Manchuria
Border of Water and Ice explores the significance of the Yalu River as a strategic border between Korea and Manchuria (Northeast China) during a period of Japanese imperial expansion into the region. The Yalu’s seasonal patterns of freezing, thawing, and flooding shaped colonial efforts to control who and what could cross the border. Joseph A. Seeley shows … [Read More]
No Rules Tonight
From the creators of Banned Book Club comes a young adult graphic novel about unveiling secrets, confessing your crushes, and finding yourself: all in the mountains of South Korea on Christmas Eve. It’s time for the annual winter camp at Anjeon University. A full weekend, deep in the mountains, with no parental supervision. But this is no … [Read More]
Politics of Public Opinion: Local Councils and People’s Assemblies in Korea, 1567–1894
Eugene Y. Park’s annotated translation of a long-awaited book by Kim Ingeol introduces Anglophone readers to a path-breaking scholarship on the widening social base of political actors who shaped “public opinion” (kongnon) in early modern Korea. Initially limited to high officials, the articulators of public opinion as the state and elites recognized grew in number … [Read More]
The Emergence of the Korean Art Collector and the Korean Art Market
Articulating the shifting interests in Korean art and offering new ways of conceiving the biases that initiated and impacted its collecting, this book traces the rise of the modern Korean art market from its formative period in the 1870s through to its peak and subsequent decline in the 1930s. The discussion centres on the collecting … [Read More]
Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire: Colonial Rule and the Battle over Memory
This is an important and controversial book, hitherto available only in Korean, Japanese and Chinese, a book which has been subject to court cases attempting to have some parts of the book deleted. The author reconsiders the issue of the “comfort women”, that is the Korean women who were compelled to provide sexual comfort to … [Read More]
Song of Arirang: The Story of a Korean Rebel Revolutionary in China
Song of Arirang tells the true story of Korean revolutionary Kim San (Jang Jirak), who left colonized Korea as a teenager to fight against Japanese imperialism and fought alongside Mao’s Red Army during the Chinese Revolution. First published in 1941, this remarkably intimate memoir (as told to the American journalist Nym Wales aka Helen Foster … [Read More]
The Korean War Novel: Rewriting History from the Civil War to the Post-Cold War
Uncovers how historical novels rewrite the history of the Korean War Revisits the Korean War and the Korean War novels from a post-Cold War perspective of decolonisation Examines the dual role of East Asians as both victims and agents of the Cold War Recovers previously hidden dimensions of the conflict, including its framing as a … [Read More]
The Dawn of War in South Korea (1947-1950): The South Korean Workers’ Party and the April Third Massacre
This book offers an analytical account of the April Third Massacre in Korea, a bloody confrontation between supporters of the Syngman Rhee Administration and those suspected (largely incorrectly) of being Communists, or members of the South Korean Workers’ Party―the second largest Communist Party after Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule. As a result, some 80,000 … [Read More]
Modern Korean Digraphia: Metanarration and National Identity, 1894–1972
William Strnad traces the formation and development of modern Korean digraphia during the years 1894–1972, including a description and analysis of the historical discourse related to Korean phonetic script and Chinese characters. Modern Korean digraphia was contextualized and altered amid the global emancipation and speculative metanarratives of modernity, and the national metanarratives of nationalism and … [Read More]
The Stone Home
A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center—a stunning work of great emotional power from the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me. In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: … [Read More]
Missionary Grammars and the Language of Translation in Korea (1876–1910)
Missionary Grammars and the Language of Translation in Korea (1876−1910) embraces the Enlightenment period in Korea (1876−1910) after the opening of the so-called Hermit Nation in describing the Korean language and missionary works. This book includes a comprehensive analysis and description of works published at that time by John Ross (1877, 1882), Felix-Clair Ridel (1881), James … [Read More]
Activism and Post-activism: Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981 – 2022
Activism and Post-activism: Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981—2022 is a new book about nonfiction filmmaking in the private and independent sectors of South Korean cinema and media from the early 1980s to the present day. Drawing on the methodologies of documentary studies, experimental film and video, digital cinema, local discourses on independent documentary, and the literature on … [Read More]
Cornerstone of the Nation: The Defense Industry and the Building of Modern Korea under Park Chung Hee
Cornerstone of the Nation is the first historical account of the complex alliance of military and civilian forces that catapulted South Korea’s conjoined militarization and industrialization under Park Chung Hee (1961–1979). Kwon reveals how Park’s secret program to build an independent defense industry spurred a total mobilization of business, science, labor, and citizenry, all of … [Read More]
Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History
“Absorbing…Starry Field reminds us that even knowing where we came from won’t tell us where we’re going – but it will help along the way.” Susan Choi, National Book Award winning author of Trust Exercise A poignant memoir for readers who love Pachinko and The Return by journalist Margaret Juhae Lee, who sets out on a search for her family’s history … [Read More]
Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea’s Democracy
South Korea is sometimes held as a dream case of modernization theory, a testament to how economic development leads to democracy. Seeds of Mobilization takes a closer look at the history of South Korea to show that Korea’s advance to democracy was not linear. Instead, while Korea’s national economy grew dramatically under the regimes of Park Chung … [Read More]