The storytellers of Korean nationalism: Book Review of David Fields, Foreign Friends: Syngman Rhee, American Exceptionalism and the Division of Korea
As author David Fields notes in Foreign Friends, the received wisdom about the division of South Korea is that American “men with little knowledge of Korea” undertook at the close of the Pacific War to split the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel, with the United States occupying the south and...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
2021
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3218 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Institution: | Singapore Management University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | As author David Fields notes in Foreign Friends, the received wisdom about the division of South Korea is that American “men with little knowledge of Korea” undertook at the close of the Pacific War to split the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel, with the United States occupying the south and the USSR the north. This “wholly American action” supposedly gave no consideration to Korean aspirations (169). But this received wisdom is inaccurate, Fields argues, because the histories of Korean nationalism and the United States were intimately intertwined well before the Pacific War. |
|---|