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The University of North Carolina Press
328 pp., 61/8 x 91/4, 6 illus., notes, bibl., index
The New Cold War History
Nation Building in South Korea
Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy
In this ambitious and innovative study Gregg Brazinsky examines American nation building in South Korea during the Cold War. Marshaling a vast array of new American and Korean sources, he explains why South Korea was one of the few postcolonial nations that achieved rapid economic development and democratization by the end of the twentieth century. Brazinsky contends that a distinctive combination of American initiatives and Korean agency enabled South Korea's stunning transformation. On one hand, Americans supported the emergence of a developmental autocracy that spurred economic growth in a highly authoritarian manner. On the other hand, Americans sought to encourage democratization from the bottom up by fashioning new institutions and promoting a dialogue about modernization and development.
Expanding the framework of traditional diplomatic history, Brazinsky examines not only state-to-state relations, but also the social and cultural interactions between Americans and South Koreans. He shows how Koreans adapted, resisted, and transformed American influence and promoted socioeconomic change that suited their own aspirations. Ultimately, Brazinsky argues, Koreans' capacity to tailor American institutions and ideas to their own purposes was the most important factor in the making of a democratic South Korea.
"Brazinsky's fluency in the Korean language and tremendous research efforts allow him to present the voices of the people of the South and the formative role they played in their own evolution in more depth and sophistication that those who have written before him. . . . International history at its very best."
--Journal of American History
"A refreshing, insightful look at nation building via South Korea. . . . Highly recommended."
--CHOICE
"Even as successive U.S. political administrations prioritized security in [their] high-level dealings with South Korea, other U.S. agencies and organizations helped to build a more diverse and protodemocratic society from below. . . . Iluminates this complex dynamic in U.S.-South Korean relations."
--Korean Quarterly
"Gregg Brazinsky's book is one of the finer treatments of the United States' choices and role in democracy building in South Korea in the early postwar years through Park Chung Hee's Yusin system. It is an empirically rich and original piece of work that should be read by all experts in the field as well as generalists of Asia and of politics."
--Victor D. Cha, Georgetown University
"With the support of extensive multi-archival research and adopting a non-U.S.-centered approach, Brazinsky has produced a highly original and provocative study on the complicated relationships between the shaping of democracy and a democratic way of life in South Korea and America's changing Korean policies during the Cold War. This is a superb study that anyone who is interested in modern Korean history and international politics across the Pacific and in East Asia would benefit from reading."--Chen Jian, Cornell University
"This is a pathbreaking book on U.S.-Korean relations and on the 'miracle on the Han.' It is essential reading for all students of nation building and for anyone who doubts the centrality of diplomatic history to the study of the past."--William Stueck, University of Georgia
Cloth: $45.00
© 2007 The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
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