Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era (Review)
Korean Quarterly, Fall 2006
Category: Book Reviews
Writers from the Other Asia, The Nation
According to the official North Korean version, the Americans were the culprits. In October 1950, the first year of the Korean War, American soldiers massacred tens of thousands of innocent people in the North Korean city of Sinchon. In perhaps the most horrifying incident, US soldiers led 900 residents, including 300 women and children, into… Continue reading Writers from the Other Asia, The Nation
Comrades and Strangers (Review)
Korean Quarterly, Fall 2005
Farmers (Review)
Korean Quarterly, Fall 2005
Japan’s Colonialization of Korea (Review)
Korean Quarterly, Spring 2005
Beyond Birth (Review)
Journal of Asian Studies, August 2005
Bait and Switch (Review)
New Politics, Winter 2005
Kim Il Sung and Korea’s Struggle
Review of Kim Il Sung and Korea’s Struggle by Won Tai Sohn John Feffer A casual observer of the United States in the 1950s might conclude that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a genial war hero who, as the 34th president, presided over a decade of unprecedented prosperity. Even my father, a World War II… Continue reading Kim Il Sung and Korea’s Struggle
The North Korean Revolution 1945-1950 (Review)
Review of Charles Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell University Press, 2003) Journalists almost ritualistically describe North Korea as the world’s last Stalinist hold out. “Stalinist,” like “communist” or “totalitarian,” is used more for its damning than its descriptive power. Indeed, in the same breath, journalists acknowledge that North Korea remains a profound… Continue reading The North Korean Revolution 1945-1950 (Review)
Korean Workers (Review)
Hagen Koo, Korean Workers: The Culture and Politics of Class Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001) Korean workers broke into the international headlines in August 1987 when tens of thousands of Hyundai employees poured into the streets of the South Korean industrial city Ulsan, demanding increased wages and independent unions. The authoritarian regime in… Continue reading Korean Workers (Review)
Han Sorya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK (Review)
Review of Brian Myers, Han Sorya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2000) by John Feffer Han Sorya, the North Korean novelist, seems an unlikely subject for a book. He is little known outside his own country, and was purged and censored… Continue reading Han Sorya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK (Review)
Free to Hate (Review)
Z Magazine, June 1994
Ethnonationalism (Review)
Commonweal, April 8, 1994
The Radiant Past (Review)
Christianity and Crisis (December 14, 1992)
What Is To Be Done (Review)
Commonweal, March 27, 1992
The Age of Diminished Expectations (Review), Commonweal
Commonweal, May 3, 1991
Warpaths (Review)
Z Magazine, December 1990
From Kabul to Managua (Review)
Z Magazine, May 1990
Voices of Glasnost (Review)
Z Magazine, April 1990
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