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
Korean Quarterly, Fall 2005
Korean Quarterly, Fall 2005
Korean Quarterly, Spring 2005
Journal of Asian Studies, August 2005
New Politics, Winter 2005
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
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)
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)
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)
Z Magazine, June 1994
Commonweal, April 8, 1994
Christianity and Crisis (December 14, 1992)
Commonweal, March 27, 1992
Commonweal, May 3, 1991
Z Magazine, December 1990
Z Magazine, May 1990
Z Magazine, April 1990