Book Review: Korea Old and New: A History by Carter J. Eckert

From the earliest times in Korean history, martial arts have impacted every facet of Korean life. Martial arts in Korea have remained fluid and ever changing as a result of movement and connections of other cultures and countries throughout Asia. It is difficult for us as Americans to understand just how significant of an impact martial arts had on everyday life during this time in Korean history; however, we can look into multiple key relationships to attain a better understanding of just how much that influence had throughout the Korean peninsula. The history of Korean martial arts is rooted in their deep connection to Korean government, culture, and religion.

Cultures around the world are divide by their distinctive characteristic of people, and how people interact within their society. Most cultures are driven by the way their environment has been set for them. Many of cultures have to adapt to the way their environment are due to the conditions that are set for them and the amount of resources that they are provided. The biggest drive for culture are the historical custom. Most countries continue to carry their ancestor custom so that the tradition may stay with them throughout their years, in which making other countries distinctive from one another. One of the particular country that will be discuss in this report is North Korea. In this report, I will be discussing the North Korean culture, with describing their living condition in the country, common issues that they face with on a daily bases, and common threat that they pose on other countries.

Following the Korean War and the rebuilding of their societies, both North Korea and South Korea’s economies have depreciated and fluctuated. With their different economic systems, one using the military and the other using trade, they both have received different results.

This report is a cultural analysis of the country of North Korea. The paper itself analyzes the history, geography, education, language, economy, and politics of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea known simply as: North Korea. Group 4 chose this particular country out of curiosity and the want to find out what the nation was like. Not many facts are known about North Korea and its shady past. This project explores everything from the difficult relationships between the Korean people and their government, to the famines and floods that threatened the entire survival of the country.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea is a novel by Barbara Demick, the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. It is published by Spiegel & Grau in the United States. It was originally published in 2009, however this version that I had read was published in 2015, with a chapter put on the end of the tome to update it to more recent events. Demick starts out the piece in North-eastern North Korea, specifically the city of Chongjin, the third largest city in North Korea, a major part of the North Korean steel industry. The subject that the author pursues is how an average North Korean lived in the transition of regimes and the struggles that it came with.

The Korean War was the historical event that most shaped Korea’s identity. It affected many areas of Korea, such as the economy, government, and the involvement of the United States. There was an economic crisis causing many people to suffer, a government was established, and because of the involvement of the US, Korea got lots of western influence. The essay below will explain how the Korean War affected Korea’s economy, the government, and the involvement of the US.

In this seemingly peaceful world, the Korean Peninsula has been seen as one of the hottest potatoes in the world. Many people do not acknowledge that the Korean War has not ended, but the event settled with just an armistice since the tension of the war became so intense between not only two Koreans, but other major countries such as Russia, China, and the United States. Even an armistice of the war, there still remains severe tensions in the Korean Peninsula and because of this, questions like why Korea has been the only divided country in the world and what has increased the tension between two Koreans have been brought up to historians. And to the answers to the questions about the modern Koreans is the war

For my AP Human Geography book report I chose to read Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. This book was published in New York in 2010 and has 296 pages. Demick is The Los Angeles Times correspondent on both of the Koreas and has won many awards regarding her work there. This book follows 6 defect North Koreans throughout their lives. Each Korean is has a different background but each is from Chongjin. The six people Demick follows are Mrs. Song, Oak-hee, Mi-ran, Jun-sang, Kim Hyuck, and Dr. Kim. Mrs. Song is a patriotic and hard working Korean who thoroughly believes in the leadership and system. Oak-hee, on the other hand, is her daughter who questions the system but still works for it. Then there is Mi-ran who

This was the beginning of what came to be known as the Korean War; and this event was responsible for the crystallization of some of the main antagonisms that would persist throughout the Cold War (see Office of the Historian). In particular, it became clear that South Korea, supported by the United States and Europe, would belong to the Western bloc; and that North Korean, supported by the Soviet Union and Communist China, would belong to the Eastern bloc. This distinction would thereafter become far more important within the context of the modern world than the fact that the division of the Korean peninsula was such a recent one, with no historical, cultural, or ethnological differences meaningfully marking off the people of the one nation from the people of the

In chapter 4, Hazel Smith illustrate how wartime influenced on the state and party building in North Korea. As South Korea estimated that North Korea lost a half of its population, the damage by Korean War was extensive (Smith, 97). Through the war, however, North Korea seemed to give Party authority so that they could function as decision maker. In addition, Kim Il Sung’s authority was also uniquely strong. His leader authority, mass mobilization, and policy of self-reliance were important elements of the North Korean post-war state. As she says in chapter 5, children were supposed to learn about Kim Il Sung (Smith, 123). Moreover, North Korean people were not allowed to have international publication (Smith, 126). These Smith’s explanations

Under the Black Umbrella tells the many captivating stories about the 35 years of Japanese occupation in Korea through both world wars. The memories are all from the perspective of Korean men and women who lived through some or all of it. Many of their stories and the history during that time are influenced by several factors, some of which include their location in Korea or surrounding areas and the government’s involvement in recording history. The Japanese were not all awful to the Koreans, since they were humans all the same, but they committed enough atrocities to have a bad reputation with the Koreans. In attempts to unify, North Koreans employed nationalism and ethnocentrism to fuel their way to become a strong nation again. South Koreans did not rally around such extreme ways and did not utilize their northern brethren’s methods of fear for power. Back then and now, globalization is a part of life and it should not be stifled. Nationalistic thinking will bring about more pain and suffering rather than just trying to coexist. Korea faced many hardships with the Japanese occupation. In recovery to their rule, issues arose when it came to accuracy in history, nationalism, ethnocentrism, and the different roles they all took between the north and the south.

Under Yi Sŏng-Gye’s son King Sejong, considered Korea’s greatest ruler, inventions like the rain gauge, the use of a movable type, and the birth of Korean alphabet called Hangeul, still in use today, surfaced. (Piddock, 27-28) They ruled the entire peninsula for 500 years. Then Korea was annexed by neighbors Japan in 1910. Korea continued to be under Japan until 1945 when it was liberated at the end of World War II. (“North Korea”, Culturegrams) “With the defeat of Japan in 1945, the Allies agreed to divide the Korean Peninsula between the Soviet Union and the United States at the thirty-eighth parallel as a temporary measure.” (Piddock, 30) The Soviet Union received the Northern part of Korea, and the United States the South. “.. Soviet forces closed off northern Korea at the thirty-eighth parallel and placed Korean communists in power there.” Evidently, North Korea was bound to turn communist.

Understanding how North Korea as a country defines itself in a changing world. Where do they derive their customs and practices, political standings and military power? Define North Korea’s history leading into the modern age and define its culture and characteristics and how they interact with the world today. Understanding a subject as broad as the term culture begins where the culture began with the birth of civilization and the people that influenced it. There are many factors that play a role in the shaping of a nation none so much as turmoil and conflict and the Korean peninsula saw its fair share for the better part of a millennia. A complete statistical breakdown of North Korea shows a struggling nation that strongly depends on

The next nation that will be discussed is South Korea, whose legal tradition finds its origins from Japan, but is now becoming more American in nature due to increased globalization. Korea’s legal tradition was first established 4,300 ago when the Gojoseon dynasty created its own statutory law, heavily influenced by Confucianism and China’s legal system (SpringerLink and Yŏn 'guwŏn 2). (note that during the retelling of South Korea’s history, the nation will be referred to as Korea until the point at which it became separated into Northern and Southern territories). Korea maintained this particular legal tradition, and aspects of a uniquely Korean brand of Confucianism, until the 19th century. In 1894, the internally induced Kabo Reforms aimed to modernize the whole of Korea in terms of legal and administrative systems, culture, economy, and more (“Emergence of a Modern Society”). The Kabo Reforms resulted in a legal system that closely resembled Japan’s system, which followed a civil legal tradition that was heavily influenced by Germany. Korea’s transformation towards a Japanese civil law system was further intensified and completed when it became a colony of Japan in 1910. Following the defeat of Japan during World War Two, Korea gained its independence in 1945, only for the southern half of the nation to fall under American occupation until 1948, while the northern half was occupied by Soviet Russia (SpringerLink and Yŏn 'guwŏn 5). Now dubbed as South Korea, the

At the end of World War II, Korea was a poor former agricultural colony of Japan. But the rapid growth of Korea’s industrial economy has been remarkable. The economy of South Korea is now the third-largest in Asia and the 13th largest in the world by GDP as of 2007. To trace back the economic development of South Korea, the former president Park Chung-Hee played a pivotal role, and was credited for shifting its focus to export-oriented favoring a few large conglomerates. Unlike his predecessors, Park showed a strong commitment to economic development, believing good economic performance as a primary means for enhancing his political legitimacy. Under the President Park Chung-Hee’s era, the government played a dominating role in a