Reviews for Korea Old and New: A History

The average rating for Korea Old and New: A History based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-15 00:00:00 Rhonda Gorton Very informative in dry way. I got the impression the authors were trying very hard to remain objective, which is fine, but they had an unfortunate tendency to skip past interesting bits. The book zooms past the little details that would make historical figures stand out as individuals with personalities. As an example, a person might be mentioned briefly as being legendary, but only in one sentence, and without the book saying *why* they were legendary. In the face of so many dry facts, I often found myself wondering which of the many people and events named were things I needed to remember and which were never going to be mentioned again. The book could have done a better job highlighting what was important, is what I'm saying. For me it was a 4-star reference book and a 2-star history book. So I'll average it out and say 3 stars.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-01-10 00:00:00 Alexander Drinda This is "the textbook" of Korean history used in American colleges. It tries to be as objective as possible so that it can detach itself from ideological fights between nationalist-leftists and nationalist-conserves. But the outcome is EXTREMELY DRY. It does not give a nice readable narrative with punctuations, and leaves the reader wondering "so what was important?" The best alternatives available for "modern" Korean history are: Bruce Cumings' Korea's Place in the Sun and Michael Robinson's Korea's Twentieth Century Odyssey. The former challenges the reader with many important historical questions. The problem is that Cumings devotes sooo much space for 1945-1953 history (about 100 pages), which I think is too detailed as an introduction to a survey history. It might also be a little confusing in terms of chronological narrative. Robinson's coverage is shorter and with more elaboration on colonial society than Cumings's. Since I study colonialism I am biased for him, but it has a much more readable narrative that gives a sense of what it would have felt like if you had lived in that period.