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on December 6, 2013
The content of this book is great. But, I bought it in Kindle form, and the amount of typos is ridiculous. From around Chapter 8 on, there is some severe problems. "Came" tends to be spelled as "Carne". Many other words are misspelled, and it is very distracting. The editor or author needs to go through this version and fix the mistakes. It is very distracting.
on August 19, 2013
Cumings' writing is well-known, so I guess there is no need to introduce it hear. Sometimes it's too detailed and therefore tedious, sometimes it's very evasive so that entire pieces of logic and narrative seem to fall out of the text; nevertheless it's worth reading but only after examining standard histories of Korea and only accompanied by other works that might take a different stance than Cumings'.
As for the Kindle Version, one small issue that I had is poor quality of scanning that renders many words unreadable (like 'faetons' instead of 'factories').
As for the Kindle Version, one small issue that I had is poor quality of scanning that renders many words unreadable (like 'faetons' instead of 'factories').
on September 5, 2013
"If at age 20 you are not a communist, you have no heart. If at 30 you are still a communist, you have no brains". The author clearly has brains, so the only other explanation is he is clinging hard to his 20s.
You should know what you're buying: If you don't want to read about why North Korea is an amazing place to live (in fact, "the best run city in Asia in the 80s"), or if you don't want to be repeatedly told every single thing the Americans did in Korea was bad, or if you don't want an amazingly skewed view of the economic development of Korea in the 80s and 90s, you should skip this book.
So why 4 stars? Because the first 1/3 of the book (the old history, colonial times up to the Korean war) is the most interesting I've ever read on the subject. It's not easy to make medieval times sound interesting, and the writer does exactly that.
The description of the first interaction of Koreans with the western world and Japanese rule gives amazing insight on 21st century South Korea and North Korea. Many things start to make sense when you understand the atrocities of 150, 100 and 60 years ago.
But as soon as the timeline approaches the 50s, the story warps into a capitalism-is-bad, America-is-bad written by an extreme socialist apologist. Facts be damned, lets get on the soapbox and rant.
As others write, it is a very opinionated book, and the opinion is often written in a very interesting way. The problem is, the writer is an extreme marxist, who evidently wears being "outside the consensus" as a badge of honor. That wouldn't be a problem, except he is selective with facts (for example, he spends two pages explaining that while there is no conclusive proof, it is clear that the South started the Korean war) and since the whole book is a story told through his eyes, a reader that does not know what really happened in the 70s, 80s and 90s will be misinformed.
Another thing that is sorely missed from the book is the recent perspective. We now have a much different perspective on many things that were just "near past" when this book was written. Many more facts are known about North Korea that makes it a much less romantic place, even for avid fans of communism. We now know things about Kim Dae Jung that may have changed the author's point of view on him. In short, the book is great on events where there is decades or centuries to look back on, but fails miserably on 'recent' events (at the time of writing).
You should know what you're buying: If you don't want to read about why North Korea is an amazing place to live (in fact, "the best run city in Asia in the 80s"), or if you don't want to be repeatedly told every single thing the Americans did in Korea was bad, or if you don't want an amazingly skewed view of the economic development of Korea in the 80s and 90s, you should skip this book.
So why 4 stars? Because the first 1/3 of the book (the old history, colonial times up to the Korean war) is the most interesting I've ever read on the subject. It's not easy to make medieval times sound interesting, and the writer does exactly that.
The description of the first interaction of Koreans with the western world and Japanese rule gives amazing insight on 21st century South Korea and North Korea. Many things start to make sense when you understand the atrocities of 150, 100 and 60 years ago.
But as soon as the timeline approaches the 50s, the story warps into a capitalism-is-bad, America-is-bad written by an extreme socialist apologist. Facts be damned, lets get on the soapbox and rant.
As others write, it is a very opinionated book, and the opinion is often written in a very interesting way. The problem is, the writer is an extreme marxist, who evidently wears being "outside the consensus" as a badge of honor. That wouldn't be a problem, except he is selective with facts (for example, he spends two pages explaining that while there is no conclusive proof, it is clear that the South started the Korean war) and since the whole book is a story told through his eyes, a reader that does not know what really happened in the 70s, 80s and 90s will be misinformed.
Another thing that is sorely missed from the book is the recent perspective. We now have a much different perspective on many things that were just "near past" when this book was written. Many more facts are known about North Korea that makes it a much less romantic place, even for avid fans of communism. We now know things about Kim Dae Jung that may have changed the author's point of view on him. In short, the book is great on events where there is decades or centuries to look back on, but fails miserably on 'recent' events (at the time of writing).
on August 29, 2013
I found this a worthwhile read for my college class. It gave me a different insight into not only modern Korean history (after occupation), but also into global politics surrounding Korea, China, and Japan. It is a history book, so it's a thick book. But invest in learning about Korea through this, and you'll come out with a different perspective about the whole subject.
on March 4, 2014
If you have an interest in Korean history this book is filled with events and causes that created the Korea we know today. I did feel that the author jumps forward & back in time several times. Overall it is very readable and the insights help develop an understanding of modern Korea.
on September 4, 2002
Cumings is a scholar and has written a quality history of Korea, but his politics are leftist and his book will be appreciated primarily by people who share those politics. While acknowledging the destructive actions of the Soviet Union and Japan in Korea, he spends a lot more time discussing the United States's sins. His discussion of South Korea's political history is a catalogue of its human rights abuses, while his chapter on North Korea is primarily a discussion of the philosophy of corporatism and an argument that the North Korean cult of the leader is an outgrowth of ancient Korean traditions, not a Stalinist phenomenon. You can get plenty of Korean history out of this book, but some people will probably be frusterated by the accompanying political commentary.
on October 8, 2016
I hated this book after a few chapters - that is, when it became obvious that Cumings' agenda is to defend the Kim Dynasty, while presenting its enemies - Rhee, the ROC and most of all, the Americans - in the most unflattering possible terms. Cumings gets a F for objectivity.
