Korea Briefing examines a period of far-reaching change in the two Koreas. Kim Il-Sung's death has marked the end of a political regime that dominated the North since before the Korean War. In the South, internal political challenges, difficult North-South issues such as economic relations, and new relationships with China, Russia, and other countries forecast momentous changes. Chapters on recent events, the state of current economic, political and international relations, and the directions of bellwether reforms in language policy and education are at the core of this study.

While mainly focusing on the Kim Dae Jung era, the essays in this book examine persistent problems and new opportunities in Korean politics, economy, and culture. In 1997, Kim Ae Jung was elected to head the government of the Seventh Republic, after 30 years in opposition.

This edition of Korea Briefing, the fourth in the series, is issued in conjunction with The Asia Society's Festival of Korea, a yearlong, nationwide celebration of Korean history, culture, and contemporary life.

This book initiates a series of comprehensive annual reviews of issues and events in the Republic of Korea and on the peninsula as a whole in 1990. It provides both students and specialist with a useful overview of a rapidly changing society.

In this third annual volume in the Korea Briefing series, experts analyze key aspects of contemporary Korean society. Included this year is an in-depth assessment of North Korea as well as chapters on politics, economics, women's issues, security on the Korean peninsula, and the development of the Korean press.

While mainly focusing on the Kim Dae Jung era, the essays in this book examine persistent problems and new opportunities in Korean politics, economy, and culture. In 1997, Kim Ae Jung was elected to head the government of the Seventh Republic, after 30 years in opposition.

For more than half of the twentieth century, the Korean peninsula has been divided between two hostile and competitive nation-states, each claiming to be the sole legitimate expression of the Korean nation. The division remains an unsolved problem dating to the beginnings of the Cold War and now projects the politics of that period into the twenty-first century. Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey is designed to provide readers with the historical essentials upon which to unravel the complex politics and contemporary crises that currently exist in the East Asian region. Beginning with a description of late-nineteenth-century imperialism, Michael Robinson shows how traditional Korean political culture shaped the response of Koreans to multiple threats to their sovereignty after being opened to the world economy by Japan in the 1870s. He locates the origins of both modern nationalism and the economic and cultural modernization of Korea in the twenty years preceding the fall of the traditional state to Japanese colonialism in 1910. Robinson breaks new ground with his analysis of the colonial period, tracing the ideological division of contemporary Korea to the struggle of different actors to mobilize a national independence movement at the time. More importantly, he locates the reason for successful Japanese hegemony in policies that included—and thus implicated—Koreans within the colonial system. He concludes with a discussion of the political and economic evolution of South and North Korea after 1948 that accounts for the valid legitimacy claims of both nation-states on the peninsula.

Ever since Korea was first divided at the end of World War II, the tension between its northern and southern halves has riveted—and threatened to embroil—the rest of the world. In this landmark history, now thoroughly revised and updated in conjunction with Korea expert Robert Carlin, veteran journalist Don Oberdorfer grippingly describes how a historically homogenous people became locked in a perpetual struggle for supremacy—and how they might yet be reconciled.

"Through interviews, gives a behind-the-scenes look at negotiations to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. Offering multiple perspectives on the second Korean nuclear crisis, provides a window of understanding on the historical, geopolitical, and security concerns at play on the peninsula since 2002, paying special attention to China's dealings with North Korea"--Provided by publisher.