Reviews

This culturally infused history begins with the decline of "Old Korea" and the opening of trade in 1860. The author (Ctr. for International and Comparative Studies, Northwestern Univ.; Origins of the Korean War, 2 vols., Princeton Univ., 1981 and 1990) shows that even as social systems changed, persistent Korean traits forged historic events. Cumings discusses Japanese colonialism and its founding role in modern Korean industry; the tragic, arbitrary division at the 38th Parallel; the Korean War; communism and its peculiarly East Asian characteristics; the United States's 1950 consideration whether to use nuclear weapons in Korea; widespread postwar poverty; political machinations in two Koreas, each emulating different models of ancient ideals; North Korea as a nuclear threat; potential reunification; and remarkable industrial growth. Most collections have sparse selections of books on Asia by true Asian experts, highly recommending this for all libraries.‘Margaret W. Norton, Morton West H.S., Berwyn, Ill.

Cumings's riveting history of modern Korea challenges much received wisdom. Rejecting the verdict of Western historians who support Japan's "modernizing role" in Korea, he characterizes the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) as a callous colonization that fostered underdevelopment, crushed dissent and suppressed indigenous culture. Director of Northwestern University's Center for International and Comparative Studies, the author is highly critical of the U.S. military occupational government (1945-1948), which he blames for bolstering the status quo and laying the groundwork for one of Asia's worst police states. Popular resistance in South Korea, he emphasizes, ultimately transformed an authoritarian regime into a relatively democratic society, while the North, which he has visited extensively, remains a cloistered, family-run, xenophobic garrison state. Yet, drawing on recent scholarship, Cumings argues that North Korea was never a mere Soviet puppet but instead resembled more autonomous communist nations, such as Yugoslavia. His incisive concluding portrait of Korean Americans presents a hardworking, upwardly mobile yet insular, ambivalent group, "in the society but not of it." This spirited, vibrant chronicle is indispensable for understanding modern Korea and its dim prospects for reunification. Photos. (Feb.)