Korea is a country whose citizenry display an intense relationship between historical perception and political disposition. The absence of a developmental bridge between pre-modern and modern times, three decades of colonial rule and immediate ideological partition of the nation in the midst of the Cold War has left Korea in a situation of historical disconnection. This makes reconciliation between conservatives and liberals and narrowing interpretive gaps more challenging. A collision over the evaluation of the legitimacies of the state and its first leaders has arisen not simply from...