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Korea's Grievous War (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights)
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About Korea's Grievous War
Product Description In 1948, two years before Cold War tensions resulted in the invasion of South Korea by North Korea that started the Korean War, the first major political confrontation between leftists and rightists occurred on the South Korean island of Cheju, where communist activists disrupted United Nations-sanctioned elections and military personnel were deployed. What began as a counterinsurgency operation targeting 350 local rebels resulted in the deaths of roughly 30,000 uninvolved civilians, 10 percent of the island's population. Su-kyoung Hwang's Korea's Grievous War recounts the civilian experience of anticommunist violence, beginning with the Cheju Uprising in 1948 and continuing through the Korean War until 1953. Wartime declarations of emergency by both the U.S. and Korean governments were issued to contain communism, but a major consequence of their actions was to contribute to the loss of more than two million civilian lives. Hwang inventories the persecutions of left-leaning intellectuals under the South Korean regime of Syngman Rhee and the executions of political prisoners and innocent civilians to "prevent" their collaboration with North Korea. She highlights the role of the United States in observing, documenting, and yet failing to intervene in the massacres and of the U.S. Air Force's three-year firebombing campaign in North and South Korea. Hwang draws on archival research and personally conducted interviews to recount vividly the acts of anticommunist violence at the human level and illuminate the sufferings of civilian victims. Korea's Grievous War presents the historical background, political motivations, legal bases, and social consequences of anticommunist violence, tracing the enduring legacy of this destruction in the testimonies of survivors and bereaved families that only now can give voice to the lived experience of this grievous war and its aftermath. Review "Su-kyoung Hwang offers not just an invaluable work of historical recovery but also a work of relentless moral and scholarly bravery. Based on research ranging from challenging oral histories to deep dives in the National Archives and Korean-language sources, Korea's Grievous War provides an unflinching and harrowing analysis of anticommunist political violence that is heartbreaking and inspiring."--Christian Appy, author of American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity "With a telling combination of testimony and documentation, writing fluidly and with authority, Hwang joins a select--too select--group of historians [...] who have examined the Korean inferno of 1950 to 1953 with an unblinking eye and an unyielding commitment to exposing the true face of a monstrous war." -- Charles J. Hanley, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and co-author of The Bridge at No Gun Ri. "Korea's Grievous War is a courageous book that warrants attention." --Seong-hyon Lee, Korea Journal "The book's mixture of approaches and concerns produces a sterling example of historical anthropology, an open-ended integration of varying sources, methodologies, narratives, time frames, and episodes. [...] Such insights contribute to the richness and accessibility of this book in presenting a thoughtful, provocative account of these deeply troubling events." --Kyung Moon Hwang, American Historical Review "Korea's Grievous War makes an important contribution to a growing body of literature on the violence that occurred during the delicate period that separated World War II and the Korean War." --Mark E. Caprio, Journal of Asian Studies "Overall, Hwang has contributed a valuable, erudite, and rigorously researched study that places Korean War related atrocities and human rights abuses in the context of twentieth-century global history." --Charles Kim, H-Diplo Reviews " Korea's Grievous War opens up the wider horrors of the Peninsula's history after Liberation [...]" --Glyn Ford, a former Euro-MP and author of North Korea on the
