The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the emergence of separate regimes, 1945-1947

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Yuksabipyungsa, 2002 - History - 606 pages
Distributed for Yuksabipyungsa Press Bruce Cumings maintains in his classic account that the origin of the Korean War must be sought in the five-year period preceding the war, when Korea was dominated by widespread demands for political, economic, and social change. Making extensive use of Korean-language materials from North and South, and of classified documents, intelligence reports, and U.S. military sources, the author examines the background of postwar Korean politics and the arrival of American and Soviet troops in 1945. Cumings then analyzes Korean politics and American policies in Seoul as well as in the hinterlands. Arguing that the Korean War was civil and revolutionary in character, Cumings shows how the basic issues over which the war was fought were apparent immediately after Korea's liberation from colonial rule in 1945. These issues led to o the effective emergence of separate northern and southern regimes within a year, extensive political violence in the southern provinces, and preemptive American policies designed to create a bulwark against revolution in the South and Communism in the North.

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Contents

Class and State in Colonial Korea
3
Lord and Peasant in Colonial Korea
39
Revolution and Reaction
68
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

Bruce Cumings is a writer, educator, and expert on Asian history and international relations. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975. Cumings taught history and politics at Northwestern University and served as director of Northwestern's Center for International and Comparative Studies. His studies of Korea resulted in several books, including Korea's Place in the Sun and a two-volume set, The Origins of the Korean War. Cumings served as a historical consultant to a Thames Television production, Korea: The Unknown War. He recounted censorship problems the production faced from the Public Broadcasting System upon its release in the book War and Television. Cumings is the Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of History at the University of Chicago.

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