"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.

"Passionate, cantankerous, and fascinating. Rather like Korea itself."--Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times Book Review Korea has endured a "fractured, shattered twentieth century," and this updated edition brings Bruce Cumings's leading history of the modern era into the present. The small country, overshadowed in the imperial era, crammed against great powers during the Cold War, and divided and decimated by the Korean War, has recently seen the first real hints of reunification. But positive movements forward are tempered by frustrating steps backward. In the late 1990s South Korea survived its most severe economic crisis since the Korean War, forcing a successful restructuring of its political economy. Suffering through floods, droughts, and a famine that cost the lives of millions of people, North Korea has been labeled part of an "axis of evil" by the George W. Bush administration and has renewed its 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.

The first English-language history of Korea to appear in more than a decade, this translation offers Western readers a distillation of the latest and best scholarship on Korean history and culture from the earliest times to the student revolution of 1960. The most widely read and respected general history, A New History of Korea (Han’guksa sillon) was first published in 1961 and has undergone two major revisions and updatings. Translated twice into Japanese and currently being translated into Chinese as well, Ki-baik Lee’s work presents a new periodization of his country’s history, based on a fresh analysis of the changing composition of the leadership elite. The book is noteworthy, too, for its full and integrated discussion of major currents in Korea’s cultural history. The translation, three years in preparation, has been done by specialists in the field.

During the founding of North Korea, competing visions of an ideal modern state proliferated. Independence and democracy were touted by all, but plans for the future of North Korea differed in their ideas about how everyday life should be organized. Daily life came under scrutiny as the primary arena for social change in public and private life. In Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950, Kim examines the revolutionary events that shaped people’s lives in the development of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. By shifting the historical focus from the state and the Great Leader to how villagers experienced social revolution, Kim offers new insights into why North Korea insists on setting its own course. Kim’s innovative use of documents seized by U.S. military forces during the Korean War and now stored in the National Archives—personnel files, autobiographies, minutes of organizational meetings, educational materials, women’s magazines, and court documents—together with oral histories allows her to present the first social history of North Korea during its formative years. In an account that makes clear the leading role of women in these efforts, Kim examines how villagers experienced, understood, and later remembered such events as the first land reform and modern elections in Korea’s history, as well as practices in literacy schools, communal halls, mass organizations, and study sessions that transformed daily routine.

A BRACING ACCOUNT OF A WAR THAT IS EITHER MISUNDERSTOOD, FORGOTTEN, OR WILLFULLY IGNORED For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953. But for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long struggle that still haunts contemporary events. With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Bruce Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its origin as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America’s post–World War II occupation of Korea, reveals untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, exposing as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides. Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.

Ever since Korea was first divided at the end of World War II, the tension between its northern and southern halves has riveted—and threatened to embroil—the rest of the world. In this landmark history, now thoroughly revised and updated in conjunction with Korea expert Robert Carlin, veteran journalist Don Oberdorfer grippingly describes how a historically homogenous people became locked in a perpetual struggle for supremacy—and how they might yet be reconciled.

Conclusion -- Notes -- Korean MMA Cadets by Class -- Glossary of Names and Terms -- Bibliography -- Sources and Acknowledgments -- Index