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Recommended: Korean history essay
Book Review: Korea Old and New: A History by Carter J. Eckert The book I chose for this book review assignment is titled Korea Old and New: A History by author Carter J. Eckert along with other contributing authors Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson and Edward W. Wagner. The book is published at Korea Institute, Harvard University in 1990. The book consists of 418 pages and it is more of a survey of Korean history and reference type of book, rather than selected readings on modern Korean politics. I chose this book because it is a complete survey of Korean history from the ancient Choson period up to the economic boom of the 1990's, a span of over 2000 years. Each chapter covers a different period, but they all share the same organization of describing the social, cultural, political, philosophical and scholarly aspects of the period in respective subsections. This made it easier to later refer to previous chapters and compare different periods in order to learn the comprehensive history of Korea. This book is pieced together in two different efforts, one which is to understand the latter history of the post-1945 era with its political liberalization and rapid industrialization period, while at the same time centering its entire text on the question of Korean nationalism and the struggle against the countless foreign invasions Korea had to face. The purpose of this book was composed to provide detailed treatment of how modern Korea has developed with the converged efforts of top eastern and western scholars who wanted to construct a fair overview of Korea's complicated history. Also, the writers wanted to create an updated version of Korea's history by covering the contemporary arena up to the 1990's. The ... ... middle of paper ... ...y say that I was able to get a good overview of Korean history with a strong sense of knowledge gained. What I specifically gained was a better sense of Korea as a unique cultural entity with its own sense of excellence and its individuality. I have also learned that regardless of the hardships Koreans have suffered in this century, they have successfully endured every worst situation a nation can ever experience. From Japan's colonial rule to the heavy influence Korea felt from Russia's communist state and America's democracy, Korea was able to withstand all these instabilities and overcome to what may be a healthy and modernized nation. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who would like a broad yet thorough overview of Korean history because; this book is precisely written and sectioned accordingly to not make learning history difficult or confusing.
...would recommend it to anybody, even if you know nothing about what goes on in North Korea. I love this book because I always hear about what North Korea does to their prisoners in the labor camps, but no one is ever truly sure of what goes on there since it is so isolated. Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk really show what this hidden society does on the inside of its country, which is a terror.
Pearson, Lester B. "Documents on the Korean Crisis." University of Manitoba. January 24, 1951. http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/canada_war/tribune/website/clippings/korea/Documents_on_the_Korean_Crisis1.shtml (accessed December 18, 2011).
Cumings, Bruce. The Origin of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes 1945-1947. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989. Print.
Suh, Jungbo 동아일보,“[만화]’원폭 잔혹성 폭로’ 日만화 국내출간 : 뉴스 : 동아닷컴.” Dong A, 14 sept. 2000. Web.
Korea ended its isolation in the mid-nineteenth-century age of imperialism, in 1882, as a defensive measure against its neighbors, signing “Treaty of Amity and Commerce” with the United States to provide “good offices if there is an external threat”. As a result of the rising Soviet-American rivalry at the end of World War II, the Korean peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel. The divide ran along the 38th parallel which is part of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) separating North and South Korea . The Soviet Union supported North Korea with Communist-control and the United States supported South Korea in democracy. In 1953 the Armistice Agreement ended three years of fighting (starting June 25, 1950) that killed over a milli...
..., South Korea’s economy ranked 15 in the world which is impressive for such a small country. Also, every couple of years, North and South Korea will both agree on a family reunion day in which they allow families who were broken up to meet each other for a day. It is very sad because they are only able to see each other for a day and are not able to know whether they will be able to see their family again. Korea still remains divided and does not show great signs of reunitement being possible.
Korea as country has endured hardship from foreign and domestic mishaps, but through revolution she has grown because she has learned from the reforms. For example, Pongju’s revolution has taught Korea civilians that if they united together to establish a type of army, they can fight against powering rulers. In Tonghak’s revolution, Koreans learned that they are fighting for the same goal: to set Korea free and progress it more as a country. In regards to the students’ demonstration, Korea learned that the educated will become the future leaders of the country because they understand the necessities and needs that the country need, especially in politics. As a result, revolution became a source that developed Korea because the reforms demanded changed.
The demarcation line dividing Korea into two parts has led a nation to become polarized and also terminated the history of Korea as a single nation. The division of the country by an artificial line gave rise to more problems than solving the existing ones. While the United States was determined to create a trusteeship in the country, which would give its place to independent Korea after five or ten years, the Soviet Union opposed to the idea of an immediate independence. The Soviet Union had an intention to establish communism functioning in Korea. The United States, on the other hand, was not willing to l...
The Korean War was a war that shaped how people live today. Because of the Soviet and Chinese involvement there are people starving in North Korea under communist rule. In the 1990s 2.5 million people died of malnutrition in North Korea because of the communist rule. Maybe if the United Nations had won the war and made Korea a constitutional democracy, Korea would be a thriving country. But because of the Soviets and Chinese the country was split in half. The well-trained, ruthless Chinese soldiers and the Soviet advice and air force were what made the Korean War a war to remember.
. South Korea has shown somewhat different behaviors in the past as middle-power state as well as emerging power state. However last two decades of South Korea’s lacking of those middle-power policies was, also an excuse, mainly because of the unique security tensions that exists on the Korean peninsula. That unique security issue with North Korea and the geological relations with traditional great powers, China and US as well as others that has interests in the East Asian ...
...rsuit, I now understand Korean culture on a deeper level. For the culmination of my research I am writing a paper of my findings and observations.
My paper will be about North Korea’s transition to a new regime. After reflecting on materials that we’ve already read, there is a need to have a collaboration by the major players surrounding the Korean Peninsula. The three countries that I want to investigate are China, Russia, and the U.S. To understand the history of these three countries and the current political situation that will lead to a peaceful transition of a new North Korean regime. Throughout the years, there have been many fluctuation’s in the relationship of these three countries. Some years China, Russia, and the United States seem to have similar motives, but yet so different at the same time. Furthermore, the last thing that any of these
In the closing stages of World War II, the soviet troops, moved quickly to Korea. When the US heard about this progress they were shocked and also moved to Korea, to prevent the soviet from making all of Korean into a satellite state. Dean rusk (United states secretary of state) decided and created the 38th parallel line that would divide the Republic of Korea (ROK) which was controlled by the US and Democratic people’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), that w...
The Korean War explicitly portrayed the atrocious battle between both the North and South side which gave the United Nations its military role for the first time, thus expanding the war from a domestic to an international scale. Sometimes called “The Forgotten War”, the Korean War was mainly overshadowed in historical terms by the conflicts that occurred before and after it, World War II and the Vietnam War. The Korean War had raged for years without a true resolution and after years of battles, even the compromise that was made was not a complete one. The current situation in North and South Korea is quite volatile. In order to apprehend the Korean War, one has to look at events that took place before the war, how the war was conducted and the aftermath of the War.
Historically, the Korean War played a tremendous role in both North and South Korean societies. The Korean War was simply a victim of the rivalry between the Communism and the Capitalism. North Korea followed the communist beliefs, while the South Korea was backed up by the United States and its allies. The result of this war was deleterious, over 5 million people were killed from both sides. (Stueck, 1997). After experiencing a huge amount of loss both economically and socially, the Korean peninsula still remains divided. In other words, Korean people have experienced extreme tragedy for nothing in return. Visibly, the two Korean states have now a miniature intention to get into Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID). Accordingly, a realist