Sheila Miyoshi Jager

While I've had a good bit of exposure to the issues that the author is dealing with, this is the best overall examination I've ever read of the whole process by which Meiji Japan became a continental empire, with the Kingdom of Korea ultimately losing its independence. Besides that, Jager considers the whole period of peak imperialism in East Asia, with special focus given to the Russo-Japanese competition, and bringing together as a system events and trends that are usually dealt with separately. Ultimately, Jager concludes that the struggle for empire has never ended, and ties the events of a century ago into current trends of rising hegemonic conflict.

About the only thing that I'm marking Jager down for a bit is that she writes much better about social and diplomatic conflict than she does about the military aspects of this era; though not badly.… (mais)

With the threat of war (or the crazy rantings about war) with North Korea, I thought I should learn more about the history of the conflict. I realized that most of what I knew about Korea and the Korean War I had learned from MASH. In browsing through books to read on the issue, I came across this book in a review in The Economist.

The book starts with the end of World War II. Japan had invaded the Korean peninsula in 1910. With Japan’s loss of the WWII, the Soviet Union and US divided the spoils and each took half of Korea, with the 38th parallel as a dividing line. Japanese troops to the North of this line were to surrender to the Soviet Union and troops to the South of this line would surrender to the United States.

The division was not intended originally to be a partition. But the Cold War between the US and the USSR made negotiations difficult. The separate administration quickly led to two separate governments arising. In the North, the Soviets were happy to allow a communist government to take control. The US was not wiling to let the South turn to communism and kept control.

In June 1950, troops from North Korea invaded South Korea to free it from American imperialism. China encouraged the confrontation with the United States. The Soviet Union also supported the invasion, but less enthusiastically. It was this triad of communism that continued in the North for decades.

After three years of fighting, the war ended with an armistice agreement. The cease fire line was back to the 38th parallel. No peace treaty was signed, nor has one been signed.

For a decade after the war, the North was more prosperous than the South. It was not until the 1980s that the countries’ prosperities turned sharply in different directions. North Korea had devoted too much of its production to the military, causing stagnation. Then the Soviet Union, its financial benefactor, collapsed. The South was under autocratic leadership until a democracy movement resulted in an elected president in 1987.

The South continued on a path of democracy and capitalism.

Meanwhile, the North turned into a dynastic communist state. When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, his son, Kim Jong-il, continued the dynasty. When he died in 2011, his son, Kim Jong-un, took control. That dynasty became focused on developing nuclear weapons to ward off the perceived threat from the United States to attack the North and once again occupy the South.

That leaves us 67 years later still dealing with a poorly thought out post-war division of the Korean peninsula, where the threat of war has persisted over those decades.

If you are interested in learning more about the Korean War and how that legacy of that war has continued to toady, this is an excellent book to add to your reading pile.… (mais)

Ever since I read [b:Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea|6178648|Nothing to Envy Ordinary Lives in North Korea|Barbara Demick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320449375s/6178648.jpg|6358552], I have been fascinated by the countries of North and South Korea. How could you not be? It wasn't so long ago that Korea was one country; now it is split into two, with vastly different economies and cultures and ways of life.

So as soon as I heard about Brothers at War, I knew it was a must-read for me. This book is a comprehensive look at the history of the two Koreas during and since the Korean War began -- how and why the war started, how the US and the Soviet Union and China influenced the relationship between North and South Korea, and how each country sees the other today. Although I wish that Jager had focused a bit more tightly on the two Koreas -- at times she delves into topics such as Sino-U.S. relations to a degree that seems far afield of her book's subject -- Brothers at War makes for a excellent introduction to modern Korean history. Jager writes quite well and presents even somewhat dry material skillfully, and the end result is gripping and informative reading.… (mais)