"Just a few decades ago, the Koreans were an impoverished, agricultural people. In one generation they moved from the fields to Silicon Valley. The nature and v

The first English-language history of Korea to appear in more than a decade, this translation offers Western readers a distillation of the latest and best schol

"Passionate, cantankerous, and fascinating. Rather like Korea itself."--Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times Book Review Korea has endured a "fractured, shattere

In 1953, South Korea was rated by the U.N. as the poorest country in the world. Five decades later, it is the fifteenth largest economy. Now, South Korea’s de