Bruce Cumings: Korea's Place in the Sun

I tend not to remember anything from non-fiction books that I read, let alone have anything to say about them, but this might be the exception. Cumings' book is on the surface an objective history, but his extensive personal experience has seemingly kept him too close to the facts for that to be strictly true. While the book gives the facts of the matters considered, the level of editorializing is heavy and undisguised. He includes personal opinions and even personal experiences liberally, something that would lessen the book's value in some eyes, as the value of a historical account seems to be tied to its objectivity.

In my eyes, however, strict objectivity is no measure of a book's value. Never mind the arguable opinion that there is no such thing; if it did exist, it would bore me. See my earlier post on Michael J. Seth's comparable Korean history to see just how little I can retain of books that prize their impartiality. In that very post, I complain of my own ability to follow a non-fiction book, but it is apparent that the real culprit is not the lack of fiction, but the lack of a narrative. Cumings' version of Korean history rectifies that situation nicely, making throughout a convincing case that the traditional way of looking at Korea is misguided, or at least that "What all men speak well of, look critically into; what all men condemn, examine first before you decide" (Confucius, epigraph to chapter 8).

Among the counter intuitive stances Cumings takes are that Japan's occupation of Korea in the early 20th century had certain benefits, that the ROK's early years were just as fascist as the DPRK's were communist, and that the United States intervention after WWII is to blame for the current standoff between the two Koreas. For each of these he makes a convincing argument, though I probably will not be repeating such things in conversation on this side of the DMZ. At any rate, I find that I like my history with a little personal investment. It makes it more memorable, even if nothing else. Such a thing might be frowned upon, especially if one was not expecting an addenda, but I shall take a note from Confucius and "examine first before [I] decide".