Product Description: The period spanning the 1880s to 1945 was a crucially important formative time for Korea, during which understandings of modernity were largely shaped by the images of Korea’s neighbours to the east, west and north. China, Japan and Russia represented at some moments modern threats, but also denoted a range of alternative modernity possibilities, and ultimately provided a model for Korea’s pre-colonial and colonial modernity...read more

By studying the early splits within Korean nationalism, Michael Robinson shows that the issues faced by Korean nationalists during the Japanese colonial period were complex and enduring. In doing so, Robinson, in this classic text, provides a new context with which to analyze the difficult issues of political identity and national unity that remain central to contemporary Korean politics.

Product Description: The book deals with the influences Social Darwinism exerted upon Korea s modern ideologies in their formative period - especially nationalism after its introduction to Korea in 1883 and before Korea s annexation by Japan in 1910. It shows that the belief in the survival of the fittest as the overarching cosmic and social principle constituted the main underpinning for the modernity discourses in Korea in the 1890s-1900s...read more

(view table of contents)

The twelve chapters in this volume seek to overcome the nationalist paradigm of Japanese repression and exploitation versus Korean resistance that has dominated the study of Korea's colonial period (1910-1945) by adopting a more inclusive, pluralistic approach that stresses the complex relations among colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. By addressing such diverse subjects as the colonial legal system, radio, telecommunications, the rural economy, and industrialization and the formation of industrial labor, one group of essays analyzes how various aspects of modernity emerged in the colonial context and how they were mobilized by the Japanese for colonial domination, with often unexpected results. A second group examines the development of various forms of identity from nation to gender to class, particularly how aspects of colonial modernity facilitated their formation through negotiation, contestation, and redefinition. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This book gives a broad history of Korea, with a particular focus on key 20th century events. Particular attention is given to the dispute over North Korea's controversial nuclear development program. This issue is profiled in the context of the post-Soviet world and against such crucial modern events as the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula, the US partition, the resulting Korean War, and the subsequent development of North and South...read more