This book is about protest politics and social movements led by a group of women, the Mothers, who were inadvertently drawn into South Korea s democratization movement from the 1970s to the 2000s. The Mothers were female family members of political dissidents of varying backgrounds and ages college students, political and religious leaders, writers, and factory workers. Women who initially had very little in common developed a bond as the days of their families detentions accumulated and their ordeals continued. This led them to form a quasi-organization prayer meeting group in the 1970s,...