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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent introduction to Korean history, September 12, 2005
This review is from: The History of Korea (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) (Hardcover)
This book, I believe, is a great introduction to the Korean history including North and South Koreas together. It is so well structured and easily written that the complexity of the East Asian country's long history comes to a reader's mind with a clear map of it. Having covered the country's history from the beginning to the present, it would satisfy those who want to know, refresh, or deepen the knowledge of the history of Korea. A distinct strength of the book is that it has a strong narrative that consistently offers a comparative historical framework whereby almost every bit of historical facts is symmetrically rearranged through the contrast between idealism and realism. The comparative framework was put into, I guess, since one cannot fully understand the country's history without considering the constant existence of imperialist powers - specifically, China and Japan from long ago, and Russia and the U.S. appeared later in its modern history - around the Korean peninsula. Against this backdrop, idealism has represented a political bloc which stressed the nation-state's independence from outside powers and sometimes tried to overturn the old paradigm in which the country was forced to take a subordinate position, especially with regard to China proper. To the contrary, realism has aimed to maintain the country's survival even at the cost of losing nationalistic pride to some extent with a full recognition of the international power order in the Far Eastern Asian region. The author shows that Korean history was full of the struggles between these two extreme antipodes of political views. Even apart from the book itself, the framework may be a powerful tool to understand Korea's present and future. For instance, it should be noted that the conflict is still going on if we think of the nuclear crisis between North Korea and the U.S. over a decade: North Korea has believed that its nuclear program would at least help protect its independence, or furthermore give it a strong balancing power against the U.S., whereas South Korea has wanted to resolve the crisis through a series of the international six-party talks because it takes a realistic view that the crisis could bring a disastrous outcome for both North and South Koreas. The book conveys not only hard cash of the Korean history but also soft lubricator of its cultural heritage to readers by presenting not a few nicely translated literary works from ancient times to modern period. The poems, various excerpts of old historical documents, or an eloquent statement of independence would invite a reader to some historic moments of vicissitudes of Korea. In a nutshell, this book has much potential to provide an unbiased and clear understanding of Korean history for English-speaking audiences.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Korean historian + English language = a hit, November 15, 2009
This review is from: The History of Korea (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) (Hardcover)
A Korean history book written by a Korean scholar. Finally. A breath of fresh air into the small niche Korean history genre, this finely written text is free from fluff, striking biasedness and needless rhetoric. The author knows his stuff and acknowledges his faults and viewpoint up front preparing the reader for an in depth look into Korean history and how it shapes the present. This text isn't free from faults, though. It is completely devoid of graphics and illustrations save for a small handful of old kingdom maps. It also scantly covers the modern history; a possible oversight seeing as the series is titled "The modern nations..." Although it doesn't imply a modern history, one can see how a casual reader might pick up the book looking for a modern history only to find medieval and japanese colonization as it's focus point. All in all, it's a great read and follows a similar flow of Micheal Breen's "the Koreans...". I would recommend this read for anyone looking for a brushup in general or a closer look at the Japanese colonization period.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Beginner's Guide to Korean History, March 27, 2011
Before I bought this book, I knew almost nothing about Korean history except for some things related to the Korean War and the modern-day shenanigans of North Korea's Dear Leader. I can easily say that now I feel that I have learned a lot about the history of the Korean peninsula. The book covers all of Korea's history from the beginning of the ancient kingdoms, the unification under Great Silla, through to the Koryo dynasty, under Japanese rule, and the modern-day history of the two Koreas in a post-World War II world. Aside from the political and military events, there is also some important things about how culture has affected Korean history, most importantly religion. The only thing I wished was covered a little more was the larger scale wars such as the Mongol invasions, the Imjin War, and the 50s Korean War. These sections seemed too short. But still I greatly enjoyed this book. Even as a beginner, it was generally easy to follow and tells the whole story of Korean history. Recommended for the novice to Korean history.
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