Kategoria BISAC: History >> Asia - Korea

Kyongju is South Korea's preeminent "culture city," an urban site rich with archaeological wonders that residents compare to those of Nara, Xian, and Rome. By examining these ancient objects in relation to the controversies that engulfed South Korea's high-speed railway line when it was first proposed in the 1990s, Kyongju Things offers a grounded and theoretically sophisticated account of South Korean development and citizenship in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Its sensitivity to issues of place, knowledge, and cultural heritage and its innovative use of network theory...

Arranged around a set of provocative themes, the essays in this volume engage in the discussion from various critical perspectives on Korean geography. Part One, Geographies of the (Colonial) City, focuses on Seoul during the Japanese colonial occupation from 1910-1945 and the lasting impact of that period on the construction of specific places in Seoul. In Part Two, Geographies of the (Imagined) Village, the authors delve into the implications for the conceptions of the village of recent economic and industrial development. In this context, they examine both constructed space, such as the...

Korea has one of the most dynamic and diverse religious cultures of any nation on earth. Koreans are highly religious, yet no single religious community enjoys dominance. Buddhists share the Korean religious landscape with both Protestant and Catholic Christians as well as with shamans, Confucians, and practitioners of numerous new religions. As a result, Korea is a fruitful site for the exploration of the various manifestations of spirituality in the modern world. At the same time, however, the complexity of the country's religious topography can overwhelm the novice...

This book provides full details of contemporary economic and political developments in North Korea since late 2005, continuing the overview of developments which were covered in the author's North Korea: A Guide to Economic and Political Developments (Routledge 2006). Key topics covered include: the succession; family visits; human rights; nuclear capability and intentions; recent initiatives in international relations, and relations with the United States; and adverse economic and social conditions.

Overall, the book demonstrates the degree to which North Korea's...

Building Ships, Building a Nation examines the rise and fall, during the rule of Park Chung Hee (1961-79), of the combative labor union at the Korea Shipbuilding and Engineering Corporation (KSEC), which was Korea's largest shipyard until Hyundai appeared on the scene in the early 1970s. Drawing on the union's extraordinary and extensive archive, Hwasook Nam focuses on the perceptions, attitudes, and discourses of the mostly male heavy-industry workers at the shipyard and on the historical and sociopolitical sources of their militancy. Inspired by legacies of labor activism from the...

Early Korea is dedicated to developing the fields of early Korean history and archaeology in the English language. The present volume consists of six scholarly works by specialists active in these fields. Three studies focus on the topic of recent advances in historical archaeology on the Korean peninsula and adjacent regions and how this is changing the ways historians understand the history of the earliest states on the peninsula. Another study surveys the origins and development of ceramic traditions in Korea based on recently recovered archaeological data. Finally, two studies discuss...