Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950
"Kim's work stays focused on various 'everyday' people as examples of how the North Korean revolution enabled regular peasants to build a new socialist modernity uniquely theirs. The author relies on oral histories and archival sources to bring these marginalized histories to light. Kim is well read across Korean, Russian, and Chinese sources as well as scholarship on North Korea. Her innovative approach is . . . a step forward from the typical Cold War approach . . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice (1 February 2014)"With a political system that is seen as bizarre in the West, and a developing nuclear program, too much of our attention is directed at North Korea as a state. Suzy Kim's book is an important contribution to overcome that bias and to point our attention at the individuals who lived in that country in its formative years. We need more research like this."—Rudiger Frank, Professor of East Asian Economy and Society, University of Vienna, Austria"This well-researched and innovative book will be welcomed not only by scholars in East Asian and Korean studies but also by a broader audience interested in questions of revolution and everyday life. With a rigorous comparative and historical perspective Suzy Kim presents a compelling and sympathetic look at illiterate tenant farmers swept up in revolution."—Henry Em, Underwood International College, Yonsei University, author ofThe Great Enterprise: Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea