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nighteyes82's review against another edition
4.0
je l'ai pas fini... jee l'ai oublie a la maison. mais il est tres bien ecrit malgr les critiques "pro-communiste"
tsharris's review against another edition
4.0
Provocative, comprehensive history of the Koreas. Cumings obviously delights in being an iconoclast, which I think can be a useful corrective, though I think at times he goes a bit too far. I do think it's unfair for people to describe him as an apologist for the DPRK - he does try to understand how Pyongyang sees the world, but he doesn't deny the terrible abuses inflicted on the North Korean people (probably best to say that he doesn't see those abuses as the only things worth knowing about North Korea). Meanwhile, while the anecdotes about his personal experiences in Korea offer something a bit different, they don't always serve the narrative terribly well.
weetziebot's review against another edition
3.0
I have only read 2/3 of this book (I didn't have to read the whole thing) but it was excellent! The chapter about South Korea's democratic movements was particularly good.
xzp314's review against another edition
3.0
as i read somewhere -- was indeed true that the author's viewpoint on Korea is very particular & the writing is neither objective nor masks itself.
what i was really looking for was a 'traditional' history book - ie a chronology of dates and events and people, so it's not fair to say that i was disappointed by this in that sense since it was not the purpose of this book to serve such a need. the thematic organization of the book was refreshing, however, and although it was not what i was looking for, i nevertheless learned something from seeing the pie sliced in a different way. if i could do it over, i would prefer to read / familiarize myself with the actual history before reading this as some of the dates/people were lost on me since my knowledge is limited at best. (also doesn't help that i know the names and events in actual korean and the romanization throws you off a lot).
also thought-provoking to see an emphatic presentation of possibly controversial sentiments / interpretations.
what i was really looking for was a 'traditional' history book - ie a chronology of dates and events and people, so it's not fair to say that i was disappointed by this in that sense since it was not the purpose of this book to serve such a need. the thematic organization of the book was refreshing, however, and although it was not what i was looking for, i nevertheless learned something from seeing the pie sliced in a different way. if i could do it over, i would prefer to read / familiarize myself with the actual history before reading this as some of the dates/people were lost on me since my knowledge is limited at best. (also doesn't help that i know the names and events in actual korean and the romanization throws you off a lot).
also thought-provoking to see an emphatic presentation of possibly controversial sentiments / interpretations.