Korea Old and New: A History Paperback – August 14, 1991

Was seeking a quick primer to give me some insight on the history of Korea and its relationship with Japan. This is the best I have found so far. Readable, fact-filled, no fat. Simultaneously published in 1990 by Ilchokak Publishers and the Korea Institute of Harvard University, written by a team of Korean and Western scholars, it gives deep insight of an inadequately chronicled culture. Extremely relevant today.

Since korea is currently in the news, it is interesting to me to see where the current regimes came from and what Korea was like. I have not finished it yet so can't comment more....

My daughter is learning Korean. Her teacher wanted her to get a book on Korean history. She is 14, the teacher thought the book maybe too advanced for someone her age, but my daughter still read it and didn't have any problems. She said she learned from if.

When there are a limited number of quality university level Korean history texts in English, this stands out as the best with a measured and relatively up to date narrative and plethora of info and sources for further use that are helpful.

Thank you. It arrived in a timely manner and was in excellent condition. It was just the book I needed to finish my paper. I am very delghted with this purchase.

I bought this book for a class, and imagine my surprise when the first chapter is due, and...its missing! Everything except the last page of Chapter one! Luckily, my professor had put the text on a 4 hour reserve at the library, so i photocopied it, and read that. When I got to Chapter Two, i found out that the binding was so terrible that chapters two and three fell out easily. They are currently paperclipped to the text. Along with Chapter One.The book itself is actually quite an interesting read, i have nothing bad to say about the author. However, the seller needs to check the quality of the books they send out.I would have returned it, but I bought it while I was studying abroad last quarter, and with a busy class schedule, I missed the return window.

I am enjoying this book. It starts way back in history prior to the Neolithic period even, which I think is cool of a history book.

I should start by saying that it's not easy to find a Korean history book in English that was actually written by Korean historians and scholars. You can find many authored by US and British authors, and having browsed through some of them, I strongly recommend AVOIDING them - I'll explain at the end of my review.On to the book: This is a fascinating account of Korean history from ancient times up to the 1980's, a span of over 2000 years. Each chapter covers a different period, and the chapters share the same organization, describing the social, cultural, political, philosophical/religous, scholarly, and military aspects of the period in respective subsections. This makes it easy to later refer to previous chapters and compare different periods. Understandably, the level of detail provided increases along with the stability of the country.The style and content changes noticeably though after the pre-Industrial Age chapters. The history up to this point is analagous to European medieval history with kings, queens, heroic warriors and devious power struggles to control the throne. However, as the 20th century dawned, Korea was overrun by Japan and roughly half a century of occupation ensued. From this point on, the book's strength is its account of modern Korea and the motivations of the Korean government. This is where accounts by foreign authors invariably fail and take on obvious biases based on the "official" information the Korean government and their own governments have dispensed. Having several Korean relatives both in the US and Korea, I should emphasize that this book's account of modern history is definitely politically liberal and populist. It presents a view of politics that is probably more agreeable to Korean university students and professors and less agreeable to older Korean generations with more conservative views.As an end-to-end reading experience, I really enjoyed this book. I mention 'keep a notepad handy' in the title of this review, and I really do encourage that. You see, the only major problem I had with this book was that the ancient history would quickly become confusing due to the frequent use of similar names, particularly the names of various kings. Also, while I'm amazed at the balance made between depth and breadth to keep a complete history under a billion pages, some of the descriptions of important historical figures are regrettably short - too short to etch them into your memory. For these reasons, I seriously recommend keeping notes (or heck, use a spreadsheet if you really want to keep this stuff straight) about the major figures and events as you go along. I really, REALLY wish they had provided a summary timeline or at least a summary of the kings as an appendix, but no such luck. If you don't keep notes, you may wind up reading the whole thing, enjoying it immensely, but then being completely incapable of recalling correct names and dates. Hint- if you ever get a Korean history trivia question "which king did <blah>?", just guess King Tejo and you've got about 50/50 odds of being right.In summary, I highly recommend this book. It's also a great source of inspiration to learn more about specific people, places, and events in Korean history.[follow-up to my initial statements]Korean history is best told by Koreans and NOT foreign authors. Why? As shown by the histories of China, Korea, and Japan, "western" culture has often incorrectly interpreted "eastern" culture. For example, western authors frequently confuse which Korean king did what. This is often because they failed to note that kings were typically referred to by one name while alive and another after their death. Also, as with many other countries, the history of Korea contains many events where the Korean government has intentionally hidden or distorted certain aspects of its culture to foreign governments. This is especially true of the relationships between China, Korea, and Japan - those three countries have played cat and mouse with each other for centuries. You can find a Chinese, Korean, and Japanese account of the same historical event and they may have significantly different views. One of them may describe a particular battle as a victory, another calls it a crafty political ploy, and the other calls it an insignificant accident.I should also clarify that while the author is listed as "Eckert", this was translated into english by a group of American (Harvard??) and Korean scholars/historians. That's it for my diatribe - hope it helps.

Very interesting with clear maps and well written. I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in Korean history.

Came pretty fast and is probably the cheapest I’ve found this book too. Would definitely recommend this book. It’s very informative and if you study Korean/Korean History This is a really good book that covers most historical happenings

Bought this for my course module in uni. Great book.

Arrived in perfect shape and before predicted delivery date

Really helped my sister with her course