Korea and the World

This edited volume brings together a set of essays exploring the global dimensions of Korea’s recent history and politics by a group of the most talented young scholars. Essays in the volume seek to answer two interrelated questions: How have international developments impacted Korea? And how has Korea in turn influenced world events and trends? The volume demonstrates that the most important issues in Korea’s post World War II history—division, war, economic development, and inter-Korean rivalry—cannot be understood without reference to the country’s global interactions. Essays in the volume cover a range of topics including: U.S.-South Korean relations, North Korean foreign policy, immigration, and democratization. The essays included in the volume push the boundaries of several different subfields. Historical essays break new ground by introducing new archival materials and revealing important details about the past diplomacy of the two Korea’s. Others consider aspects of American influence on Korea that have previously been ignored such as the U.S. impact on urban development and food consumption. Essays on contemporary Korean politics and society make sense of most recent developments in North and South Korea while presenting intriguing new interpretive frameworks. By bringing new voices in Korean Studies to the forefront, this volume changes how we understand and reconceptualize Korea’s role in the world.

This well-edited collection of essays makes an important contribution to our understanding of the history of the two Koreas in the past seventy years. Each essay examines some aspect of Korea’s global engagement and the degree to which Koreans were passive or active agents in shaping their own development. The essays are accessibly written and broad enough in their implications to be of interest to non-specialists while providing new findings and insights that will require specialists to rethink some of their assumptions about recent Korean history., This book indeed explores “new frontiers” with a collection of excellent chapters written by some of the rising young scholars in Korean Studies. The book examines an intriguing set of topics that break new ground and utilize new archival materials while addressing issues that do not receive the attention they deserve. These chapters should be required reading for the fascinating stories they tell of how both Koreas faced difficult challenges in dealing with a changing global environment and worked to determine their own fate., An exciting and path-breaking look at Korea’s interaction with the modern world. Brazinsky has assembled some the best young scholars of Korea, and has produced a wide-ranging work that offers fresh insights and fresh perspectives. This is a “must-read” for anyone interested in understanding the complicated history of modern Korea., The essays in this volume are of high quality and on important topics. The book as a whole will be required reading for specialists and students in the field of Korean Studies. Highly recommended!

Gregg A. Brazinsky is professor of history and international affairs at The George Washington University.