By studying the early splits within Korean nationalism, Michael Robinson shows that the issues faced by Korean nationalists during the Japanese colonial period were complex and enduring. In doing so, Robinson, in this classic text, provides a new context with which to analyze the difficult issues of political identity and national unity that remain central to contemporary Korean politics.

By studying the early splits within Korean nationalism, Michael Robinson shows that the issues faced by Korean nationalists during the Japanese colonial period were complex and enduring. In doing so, Robinson, in this classic text, provides a new context with which to analyze the difficult issues of political identity and national unity that remain central to contemporary Korean politics.

What makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality--the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to a nation--has not received proportionate attention. In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality. Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa. This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the develpment of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which, all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.

ทำไมเราถึงยกให้หนังสือ “ประวัติศาสตร์ไทยร่วมสมัย” เป็นหนังสือแห่งปี และหวังที่จะเห็นหนังสือเล่มนี้อยู่ในมือนักอ่านคนไทยมากที่สุด! นั่นเพราะว่าตระหนักถึงพลังของการอ่านเป็นอย่างดี คนที่ได้รับข้อมูลข่าวสารหลากหลาย ย่อมจะเข้าใจเรื่องราวต่างๆ และวิเคราะห์สถานการณ์ได้ดีกว่า คริส เบเคอร์ (นักประวัติศาสตร์) และผาสุก พงษ์ไพจิตร (นักเศรษฐศาสตร์การเมือง) มีผลงานเขียนและแปลร่วมกันหลายเล่มทั้งที่เป็นภาษาอังกฤษและภาษาไทยเผยแพร่สู่วงกว้างทั้งในและต่างประเทศ ก่อนที่หนังสือเล่มนี้จะมาอยู่ในมือผู้อ่านคนไทย ก็ผ่านสายตาชาวต่างชาติมาแล้วในฉบับภาษาอังกฤษที่จัดพิมพ์โดยสำนักพิมพ์มหาวิทยาลัยเคมบริดจ์ และใช้เรียนกันในวิชาประวัติศาสตร์การเมืองของเอเชียตามมหาวิทยาลัยหลายแห่งในต่างประเทศ จนได้รับคำวิจารณ์จากสื่อต่างๆ อาทิ Journal of the Siam Society กล่าวว่า “เป็นหนังสือประวัติศาสตร์ไทยเล่มแรกที่เป็น ‘ประวัติศาสตร์’ ในความหมายสมัยใหม่ ใครที่อยากรู้ที่มาของสังคมปัจจุบัน จุดแข็ง จุดอ่อน และศักยภาพสู่อนาคตในโลกที่ไร้เสถียรภาพ ต้องอ่านให้ได้” Malcom Falkus (Bangkok Post) กล่าวว่า “คริส เบเคอร์ และผาสุก พงษ์ไพจิตร ได้ผลิตงานที่วิเศษจริงๆ ตีความได้เก่ง ท้าทายผู้อ่าน รวบรวมงานวิจัยล่าสุดทั้งภาษาไทยและอังกฤษ และวิเคราะห์แบบฉีกแนว น่าประทับใจที่สุด” ฉลอง สุนทราวาณิชย์ (The Nation) กล่าวว่า “สนองตอบความต้องการของทั้งผู้อ่านทั่วไป และนักศึกษาที่เรียนประวัติศาสตร์ และแง่มุมต่างๆ ของสังคมไทยจากอดีตถึงปัจจุบัน” จึงอาจเรียกได้ว่า หนังสือเล่มนี้สามารถกะเทาะเปลือกสังคมไทยได้อย่างรอบด้าน และทำให้ผู้อ่านเข้าใจบริบทการเมืองไทยได้ดีที่สุด ควรค่าแก่การศึกษาอย่างยิ่ง !!!

Feminist tales from Japan that blend humor, surrealism, and sharp societal critique, by the acclaimed author of Where the Wild Ladies Are. A collection of fifty-two short stories and pieces of flash fiction, The Woman Dies takes as its impetus the various forms of discrimination entrenched within Japanese society, particularly the long, stubborn roots of sexism.    Matsuda approaches often-thorny subjects such as the normalizing effect of violence against women on screen, or the aesthetics associated with technology, with an inventiveness and quirky humor that keep the narrative on the cusp between seriousness and levity.     Wordplay evolves into something much more complex, inanimate objects are endowed with their own point of view, and hard-hitting feminist stances are conveyed with a dry, detached humor that makes them all the more uncompromising.   Not so much a rollercoaster ride, rather an entire theme park, The Woman Dies is an out-of-the ordinary space readers will step into with feelings of wonder and discombobulation in equal parts.  

The international bestseller with over half a million copies sold, for fans of Convenience Store Woman and The Kamogawa Food Detectives. Welcome to Tenderness! A quaint seaside town in Kitakyushu, Mojiko is full of hidden delights. And one unexpected treasure is the 24/7 convenience store, Tenderness. Sure, it’s a bit odd that the incredibly handsome manager has his own fan club. And perhaps the customers are somewhat eccentric, if not entertaining. But there’s a warmth about the store that draws you in. The truth is, Tenderness is different. Operating only in Kyushu, Tenderness stands firm and proud by its motto “Caring for People, Caring for You”, no matter the cause. And for Mitsuhiko, dishing out delicious food is simply the appetizer to his unsolicited but hearty wisdom on the town’s shenanigans. An international bestseller with over half a million copies sold between Japan and South Korea, The Convenience Store by The Sea tells the delightfully quirky and heartfelt stories of the store’s customers and employees, offering us all a unique recipe for a good, fulfilling life.

From the late nineteenth century, Japan sought to incorporate the Korean Peninsula into its expanding empire. Japan took control of Korea in 1910 and ruled it until the end of World War II. During this colonial period, Japan advertised as a national goal the assimilation of Koreans into the Japanese state. It never achieved that goal. Mark Caprio here examines why Japan's assimilation efforts failed. Utilizing government documents, personal travel accounts, diaries, newspapers, and works of fiction, he uncovers plenty of evidence for the potential for assimilation but very few practical initiatives to implement the policy. Japan's early history of colonial rule included tactics used with peoples such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan that tended more toward obliterating those cultures than to incorporating the people as equal Japanese citizens. Following the annexation of Taiwan in 1895, Japanese policymakers turned to European imperialist models, especially those of France and England, in developing strengthening its plan for assimilation policies. But, although Japanese used rhetoric that embraced assimilation, Japanese people themselves, from the top levels of government down, considered Koreans inferior and gave them few political rights. Segregation was built into everyday life. Japanese maintained separate communities in Korea, children were schooled in two separate and unequal systems, there was relatively limited intermarriage, and prejudice was ingrained. Under these circumstances, many Koreans resisted assimilation. By not actively promoting Korean-Japanese integration on the ground, Japan's rhetoric of assimilation remained just that.

From the late nineteenth century, Japan sought to incorporate the Korean Peninsula into its expanding empire. Japan took control of Korea in 1910 and ruled it until the end of World War II. During this colonial period, Japan advertised as a national goal the assimilation of Koreans into the Japanese state. It never achieved that goal. Mark Caprio here examines why Japan's assimilation efforts failed. Utilizing government documents, personal travel accounts, diaries, newspapers, and works of fiction, he uncovers plenty of evidence for the potential for assimilation but very few practical initiatives to implement the policy. Japan's early history of colonial rule included tactics used with peoples such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan that tended more toward obliterating those cultures than to incorporating the people as equal Japanese citizens. Following the annexation of Taiwan in 1895, Japanese policymakers turned to European imperialist models, especially those of France and England, in developing strengthening its plan for assimilation policies. But, although Japanese used rhetoric that embraced assimilation, Japanese people themselves, from the top levels of government down, considered Koreans inferior and gave them few political rights. Segregation was built into everyday life. Japanese maintained separate communities in Korea, children were schooled in two separate and unequal systems, there was relatively limited intermarriage, and prejudice was ingrained. Under these circumstances, many Koreans resisted assimilation. By not actively promoting Korean-Japanese integration on the ground, Japan's rhetoric of assimilation remained just that.

This book explains the roots, politics, and legacy of Korean ethnic nationalism, which is based on the sense of a shared bloodline and ancestry. Belief in a racially distinct and ethnically homogeneous nation is widely shared on both sides of the Korean peninsula, although some scholars believe it is a myth with little historical basis. Finding both positions problematic and treating identity formation as a social and historical construct that has crucial behavioral consequences, this book examines how such a blood-based notion has become a dominant source of Korean identity, overriding other forms of identity in the modern era. It also looks at how the politics of national identity have played out in various contexts in semicolonialism, civil war, authoritarian politics, democratization, territorial division, and globalization.

Almost forty years after the publication of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition , the subject of invented traditions―cultural and historical practices that claim a continuity with a distant past but which are in fact of relatively recent origin―is still relevant, important, and highly contentious. Invented Traditions in North and South Korea examines the ways in which compressed modernity, Cold War conflict, and ideological opposition has impacted the revival of traditional forms in both Koreas. The volume is divided thematically into sections (1) history, religions, (2) language, (3) music, food, crafts, and finally, (4) space. It includes chapters on pseudo-histories, new religions, linguistic politeness, literary Chinese, p’ansori , heritage, North Korean food, architecture, and the invention of children’s pilgrimages in the DPRK. As the first comparative study of invented traditions in North and South Korea, the book takes the reader on a journey through Korea’s epic twentieth century, examining the revival of culture in the context of colonialism, decolonization, national division, dictatorship, and modernization. The book investigates what it describes as “monumental” invented traditions formulated to maintain order, loyalty, and national identity during periods of political upheaval as well as cultural revivals less explicitly connected to political power. Invented Traditions in North and South Korea demonstrates that invented traditions can teach us a great deal about the twentieth-century political and cultural trajectories of the two Koreas. With contributions from historians, sociologists, folklorists, scholars of performance, and anthropologists, this volume will prove invaluable to Koreanists, as well as teachers and students of Korean and Asian studies undergraduate courses.

The international bestseller with over half a million copies sold, for fans of Convenience Store Woman and The Kamogawa Food Detectives. Welcome to Tenderness! A quaint seaside town in Kitakyushu, Mojiko is full of hidden delights. And one unexpected treasure is the 24/7 convenience store, Tenderness. Sure, it’s a bit odd that the incredibly handsome manager has his own fan club. And perhaps the customers are somewhat eccentric, if not entertaining. But there’s a warmth about the store that draws you in. The truth is, Tenderness is different. Operating only in Kyushu, Tenderness stands firm and proud by its motto “Caring for People, Caring for You”, no matter the cause. And for Mitsuhiko, dishing out delicious food is simply the appetizer to his unsolicited but hearty wisdom on the town’s shenanigans. An international bestseller with over half a million copies sold between Japan and South Korea, The Convenience Store by The Sea tells the delightfully quirky and heartfelt stories of the store’s customers and employees, offering us all a unique recipe for a good, fulfilling life.

This is a riveting and disturbing account of the medical atrocities performed in China during WWII. Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities. The book presents the words of former unit members themselves, taken from remarks they made at a traveling Unit 731 exhibition held in Japan in 1994-95. They recount vivid first-hand memories of what it was like to take part in horrific experiments on men, women and children, their motivations and reasons why they chose to speak about their actions all these years later. A new foreword by historian Yuma Totani examines the actions of Unit 731, the post-war response by the Allies and the lasting importance of the book. Japan's Infamous Unit 731 represents an essential addition to the growing body of literature on the still unfolding story of some of the most infamous war crimes in modem military history. By showing how the ethics of normal men and women, and even an entire profession, can be warped by the fire of war, this important book offers a window on a time of human madness and the hope that history will not be repeated.

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses--until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho's best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans —though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.