[KS] Peter Banseok Kwon’s "Cornerstone of the Nation: The Defense Industry and the Building of Modern Korea under Park Chung Hee" (new publication from Harvard University Asia Center)

[Lee, Daniel]

Dear All:

I would like to announce the publication of a new book by Harvard University Asia Center, Peter Banseok Kwon’s Cornerstone of the Nation: The Defense Industry and the Building of Modern Korea under Park Chung Hee:

Cornerstone of the Nation is the first historical account of the complex alliance of military and civilian forces that catapulted South Korea’s conjoined militarization and industrialization under Park Chung Hee (1961–1979). Kwon reveals how Park’s secret program to build an independent defense industry spurred a total mobilization of business, science, labor, and citizenry, all of which converged in military-civilian forces that propelled an unprecedented model of modernization in Korea. Drawing on largely untapped declassified materials from Korea and personal interviews with contemporaneous participants in the nascent defense industry, as well as declassified US documents and other external sources, Kwon weaves together oral histories and documentary evidence in an empirically rich narrative that details how militarization shaped the nation’s rapid economic, technological, political, and social transformation. Cornerstone of the Nation makes the case that South Korea’s arms development under Park may be the most durable and yet least acknowledged factor behind the country’s rise to economic prominence in the late twentieth century. Through an analysis that simultaneously engages some of the most contested issues in Korean historiography, development literature, contemporary politics, and military affairs, this book traces Korea’s distinct pathway to becoming a global economic force.

For more about the book, or to pre-order, please visit: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674297135


With many thanks,
Daniel Seungchurl Lee

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Daniel Seungchurl Lee
李承哲 | 이승철 | ダニエル・リー
Japan/Korea Editor | Harvard University Asia Center | CGIS Room s118 | 1730 Cambridge Street | Cambridge, MA 02138 | (617) 496-8684 | https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/publications



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