Challenges the prevailing logic of confrontation and deterrence on the Korean peninsula.

"This volume represents the first English-language collection by the renowned Korean cultural and political critic Paik Nak-chung. Paik's omnipresent theme is the 'division system' on the Korean peninsula, the peculiar logic by which one nation remains divided into two states. These deeply humanistic essays foreground the needs of ordinary citizens and call for globally relevant solutions to Korea's divided reality."--Publisher's website.

The Korean peninsula, divided for more than fifty years, is stuck in a time warp. Millions of troops face one another along the Demilitarized Zone separating communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea. In the early 1990s and again in 2002-2003, the United States and its allies have gone to the brink of war with North Korea. Misinterpretations and misunderstandings are fueling the crisis. "There is no country of comparable significance concerning which so many people are ignorant," American anthropologist Cornelius Osgood said of Korea some time ago. This ignorance may soon have fatal consequences. North Korea, South Korea is a short, accessible book about the history and political complexites of the Korean peninsula, one that explores practical alternatives to the current US policy: alternatives that build on the remarkable and historic path of reconciliation that North and South embarked on in the 1990s and that point the way to eventual reunification.

In the West, interest about Korea is often limited to its unnatural division and the peculiar regime in the North of the Peninsula. However, its culture is rich, its history a thousand years-old, its land populous, and its economy spectacularly growing. How is it possible that such a country, a key figure in the recent history of Asia would only call to mind advanced technology or nuclear threat? This book is drawn from the personal experiences of the author, who lived in South Korea and experienced it two different times, in 2000 and 2010, and had the possibility of going back in 2017. In all his time there, he tasted all the characteristics, the contradictions, merits and defects of this halved and impenetrable country.

Despite American success in preventing the conquest of South Korea by communist North Korea, the Korean War of 1950-1953 did not satisfy Americans who expected the kind of total victory they had experienced in WW II. In Korea, the U.S. limited itself to conventional weapons. Even after communist China entered the war, Americans put China off-limits to conventional bombing as well as nuclear bombing. Operating within these limits, the U.S. Air Force helped to repel 2 invasions of South Korea while securing control of the skies so decisively that other U.N. forces could fight without fear of air attack.

The Korean peninsula underwent a continuous number of earth-shaking events in the twentieth century - although it is generally out of the earthquake zone. Jutting off the extreme northeast edge of the Eurasian landmass, and with a combined population of nearly seventy million people, North and South Korea are situated among China, Japan and Russia. They are also profoundly influenced by the United States because of the circumstances of the Korean War (1950-1953). The issues of war and peace, left over from the Korean war, remain unresolved; these two separate states are the residue of the Cold War. This anomaly still poses ominous prospects for war or peace in Asia, and American national security interests. Focusing on the last hundred years of Korea's long history, and its particular relationship with China, one is in a position both to understand and marvel at the events of this century on the Korean peninsula. At the same time, the complexity of the division of the country into North and South Korea - not just a perennial struggle between good and evil, although that is certainly part of the story - places the future at risk. There was one terrible war that divided the 20th century in half and there are threats of more trouble to come. This study of the history of the past century will provide some answers and open the way to informed speculations.

"When Korea's Place in the Sun first appeared, Bruce Cumings argued that Korea had endured a "fractured, shattered twentieth century." The new century has seen South Korea flourish after a restructuring of its political economy, and North Korea suffer through a famine that has cost the lives of millions of people. The United States continues to play an important role on the Korean peninsula, from the Clinton administration overseeing the first real hints of reunification to the Bush administration confronting a renewal of nuclear threats. On both sides Korea seems poised to continue its fractured existence on into the new century, with potential ramifications for the rest of the world." "For those who need a grounding in the tempestuous history surrounding Korea, or a context in which to understand its role in current global politics, this updated edition of Korea's Place in the Sun is a must read."--BOOK JACKET.