Kyung Moon Hwang

A concise, lively history of Korea, which explores the richness of Korean civilization from the ancient era through to the jarring transformation that resulted in two distinctive trajectories through the modern world. This new edition of a successful text brings it up-to-date with the latest scholarship and developments in Korea's history.

A History of Korea

Gi-Wook Shin

Ki-uk Sin

One of the largest political protests in contemporary Korean history, the May 1980 Kwangju Uprising still exerts a profound, often contested, influence in Korean society. Through a deft combination of personal reflections and academic analysis, Contentious Kwangju offers a comprehensive examination of the multiple, shifting meanings of this seminal event and explains how the memory of Kwangju has affected Korean life from politics to culture. The first half of the book offers highly personal perspectives on the details of the uprising itself, including the Citizens' Army, the fleeting days of Kwangju citizen autonomy, the activities of American missionaries, and the aftermath following the uprising's suppression by government forces. The second half provides a wide-ranging scholarly assessment of the impact of Kwangju in South Korea, from democratization and the fate of survivors to regional identity and popular culture, concluding with an examination of Kwangju's significance in the larger flow of modern Korean history. In keeping with the book's title, the essays offer competing interpretations of the Kwangju Uprising, yet together provide the most thorough English-language treatment to date of the multifaceted, sweeping significance of this pivotal event.

The May 18 Uprising in Korea's Past and Present

Contentious Kwangju

Dynamic and meticulously researched, A History of Korea continues to be one of the leading introductory textbooks on Korean history. Assuming no prior knowledge, Hwang guides readers from early state formation and the dynastic eras to the modern experience in both North and South Korea. Structured around episodic accounts, each chapter begins by discussing a defining moment in Korean history in context, with an extensive examination of how the events and themes under consideration have been viewed up to the present day. By engaging with recurring themes such as collective identity, external influence, social hierarchy, family and gender, the author introduces the major historical events, patterns and debates that have shaped both North and South Korea over the past 1500 years. This textbook is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Korean or Asian history. The first half of the book covers pre-20th century history, and the second half the modern era, making it ideal for survey courses.

This open access book examines the depiction of Korean history in recent South Korean historical films. Released over the Hallyu (“Korean Wave”) period starting in the mid-1990s, these films have reflected, shaped, and extended the thriving public discourse over national history. In these works, the balance between fate and freedom—the negotiation between societal constraints and individual will, as well as cyclical and linear history—functions as a central theme, subtext, or plot device for illuminating a rich variety of historical events, figures, and issues. In sum, these highly accomplished films set in Korea’s past address universal concerns about the relationship between structure and agency, whether in collective identity or in individual lives. Written in an engaging and accessible style by an established historian, Fate and Freedom in Korean Historical Films offers a distinctive perspective on understanding and appreciating Korean history and culture.

Fate and Freedom in Korean Historical Films

The first book to explore the institutional, ideological, and conceptual development of the modern state on the peninsula, Rationalizing Korea analyzes the state’s relationship to five social sectors, each through a distinctive interpretive theme: economy (developmentalism), religion (secularization), education (public schooling), population (registration), and public health (disease control). Kyung Moon Hwang argues that while this formative process resulted in a more commanding and systematic state, it was also highly fragmented, socially embedded, and driven by competing, often conflicting rationalizations, including those of Confucian statecraft and legitimation. Such outcomes reflected the acute experience of imperialism, nationalism, colonialism, and other sweeping forces of the era.

The Rise of the Modern State, 1894–1945

Rationalizing Korea

Goguryeo and Ancient Korea -- Queen Seondeok and Silla's Unification of Korea -- The Maturation and Decline of Unified Silla -- Elements of Goryeo's Founding -- Religion and Regionalism in the Goryeo Order -- Survival and Adaptation in the Mongol Overlord Period -- Competing Views of the Goryeo-Joseon Transition -- Confucianism and the Family in the Early Joseon Era -- Surviving the Great Invasions, 1592-1636 -- Ideology, Family, and Nationhood in the Mid-Joseon Era -- Intellectual Opening in the Late Eighteenth Century -- Popular Culture in the Late Joseon Era -- Nineteenth-Century Unrest -- 1894, A Fateful Year -- Rise and Fall of the Great Korean Empire -- Responses to the Japanese Takeover, 1904-1918 -- Stirrings of Social Change in the Long 1920s -- Nation, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Late Colonial Period -- Wrenching Trials of Wartime Mobilization, 1938-45 -- Promises and Perils of the Liberation Period, 1945-50 -- Multiple Sides of the Korean War -- History and Autonomy in Early North Korea -- Striving for Revolution in 1960s South Korea -- Culture and Politics in 1970s South Korea -- Monumental Life in North Korea -- South Korea's Extended Democratization --South Korean Renewal in the Early Twenty-First Century -- Epilogue: Historical Reckoning in the Two Koreas, 2010-2020.

A wide-ranging collection of concise essays, Past Forward introduces core features of Korean history that illuminate current issues and pressing concerns, including recent political upheavals, social developments and cultural shifts. Adapted from Kyung Moon Hwang’s regular columns in the Korea Times of Seoul, the essays present interpretative points concerning historical debates and controversies to generate thinking about the ongoing impact of the past on the present and vice versa: how Korea’s present circumstances reflect and shape the evolving understanding of its past. In taking the reader on a compelling journey through history, Past Forward paints a distinctive, fascinating portrait of Korea and Koreans both yesterday and today.

Past Forward

One of the largest political protests in contemporary Korean history, the May 1980 Kwangju Uprising still exerts a profound, often contested, influence in Korean society. Through a deft combination of personal reflections and academic analysis, Contentious Kwangju offers a comprehensive examination of the multiple, shifting meanings of this seminal event and explains how the memory of Kwangju has affected Korean life from politics to culture. In keeping with the book's title, the essays offer competing interpretations of the Kw.

Kyung Moon Hwang

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