After the Korean War
An Intimate History
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:16th Apr '20
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This insightful book examines the Korean War's impact on personal and collective memory, highlighting the importance of kinship in understanding its legacy in After the Korean War.
This groundbreaking study delves into the history and legacy of the Korean War, focusing on the intimate human experiences that shaped its aftermath. In After the Korean War, the author, renowned anthropologist Heonik Kwon, reclaims kinship as an essential category for understanding historical and political contexts. Kwon explores how memories of Korea's civil war continue to influence the collective consciousness of its people, highlighting the importance of personal narratives in the broader historical discourse.
Kwon, known for his award-winning work on the Vietnam War, offers a fresh perspective on the enduring legacies of the Korean conflict. He examines the complex interplay between modernity and tradition, as well as the intersections between civil and social realities. Through captivating historical detail and innovative conceptual frameworks, After the Korean War provides a moving analysis that sheds light on reconciliation, memory, and the intricate dynamics of political theory in relation to the Korean War.
This comprehensive examination stands out as the first of its kind, offering insights into the Korean War through the lens of intimate human experience. Kwon's work invites readers to reconsider the significance of personal connections and memories in understanding the lasting impact of historical events. By intertwining personal stories with broader historical narratives, After the Korean War enriches our understanding of the conflict's legacy and its ongoing relevance in contemporary society.
'This extraordinary book gives us - finally - the language to touch the heart of the Korean War's fundamental, enduring violence. With kinship in focus as the essential terrain of the political, Kwon completely transforms how we understand mass violence at the intersection between the intimate, the state, and the global. After the Korean War is a work of exquisite and stunning brilliance.' Monica Kim, New York University
'Grounded in deep historical research and intimate ethnography, After the Korean War offers a timely reflection on little understood aspects of the global cold war through the enduring consequences of the Korean War. A must read in the current climate of renewed Sino-American power plays and their collateral impact in the region and beyond.' Nayoung Aimee Kwon, Duke University, North Carolina
'After the Korean War puts to rest talk about how the Cold War is over and behind us. As Heonik Kwon powerfully shows in tracing the global civil war in Korea, it is the way the intimate violence of war as experienced by families has been remembered - or not remembered - that continues to entrap us. Only by respecting 'the rights of the dead to be remembered', as he eloquently argues, can we truly move beyond the legacies of the Cold War to establish the friendships and solidarities needed today.' Andre Schmid, University of Toronto
'Heonik Kwon's intimate history of the Korean War and its myriad aftermaths offers one of the most humane accounts to date of what, in a previous study, he called 'The Other Cold War'.' Todd Henry, European Journal of Korean Studies
'… After the Korean War stands as one of the most innovative treatments of the Korean War to appear in recent years … It is Kwon's capacity to look at the Korean War in a way that also sheds light on some of the other horrors of the modern era that makes his work such a compelling and valuable contribution.' Gregg A. Brazinsky, Acta Koreana
ISBN: 9781108487924
Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 15mm
Weight: 470g
246 pages