The Partition of Korea After World War II - by Kenneth A Loparo (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Drawing on multi-archival research in Korean, Russian and English, this book looks at the complexity and changes in Stalin's policy toward Korea for answers about the division of Korea in 1945 and the failure of reunification between 1945 and 1948. Lee argues that the trusteeship decision is key to the division's origins and permanency.

Review Quotes

"Relying on both primary and secondary sources, notably newly accessible Soveit archives, Lee meticulously goesw over major wartime conferences and decisions among the Allied powers concerning the future shape of Korea. . .this book is an illuminating addition to scholarship on modern Korean history." - Vipan Chandra, Pacific Affairs"Jongsoo Lee's The Partition of Korea after World War II is an outstanding achievement. Lee provides a comprehensive and complex account of Korea's partition using an astonishingly impressive array of American, Russian, and Korean archival sources. His thorough and subtle analysis has set a new and very high standard for the subject. Many diplomatic historians aspire to write history from a multinational and multiarchival perspective but fall short: Jongsoo Lee, however, has not. His book is properly subtitled A Global History." - John Earl Haynes, author of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America

"[A] close and thoughtful analysis of one of the most long-lasting and troublesome elements of Stalin's postwar foreign policy... This book provides the most extensive examination of this subject yet published and is particularly valuable for charting simultaneously the development of Soviet and American policy toward the peninsula together with the actions of Korean political leaders." - The Russian Review

About the Author

JONGSOO JAMES LEE is Associate in Research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University, USA.