A History of Korea (9781872843865, hard cover) is a product of a particular moment in South Korean social and political history, authored collectively by the Korean Historical Research Association and published in the aftermath of the popular resistance movements of the late 1980s that brought an end to military dictatorship and ushered in direct elections for the presidency of South Korea.
These historians were writing against previous understandings of Korean history that they perceived as legitimising political and economic oppression from both Korean elites and foreign powers.
As they stood in opposition to previous histories and their political underpinnings, they proposed their own visions of past, present, and future Korean societies. In so doing, they helped move the popular struggle for the democratisation of South Korea towards the centre of the national narrative.
A History of Korea is a manifesto, a conscious call for a particular interpretation of Korean history for deployment in the democratisation, unification, and class liberation movements of the period.
The Korean Historical Research Association (Hanguk Yeoksa Yeonguhoe) was founded in 1988 as the ultimate result of several years of organisational work by historians who participated in the Korean social reform movements of the 1980s.
The Korean Historical Research Association thus took up the goal of “contributing to the independence and democratisation of Korean society through the establishment of a scientific and practical historiography.” The Association engages in joint research projects, spreading the results of historical research to the masses, and publishing and distributing academic journals and popular history texts.
The Korean Historical Research Association now has more than 700 members and has created an efficient organisation that publishes and disseminates papers, books, and bulletins.
Joshua Van Lieu, the translator of this volume, at the time of publication, was a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Washington, conducting dissertation research in nineteenth century Sino-Korean relations and Korean political history.