Roughstuff's Korean War Archive

book reviews and summaries, comments, analysis
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Cumings, Bruce. Korea’s Place in the Sun.

This is a good book to read and one of a series that I have decided to include on my site because they will help the reader understand the larger context of history and culture in which the Korean War sits. It makes you fascinated about the country and its people. One of my greatest experiences in Asia was one day when I was on one of my lengthy bicycle tours. I had just left the town of Po’hang, heading south toward Pusan, when I can to Kyong’ju, seat of the ancient Silla (sometimes written Shilla) Dynasty. Burial mounds, temples, fortresses; a moving and meaningful experience that makes you aware of just how old this Korean society is! Many people told me that a visit to Panmun’jom is the highlight of a trip to the country. Wrong wrong, wrong. It was Kyong’ju, and I recommend it. Only a visit to the Chosin—this websites namesake—will have greater meaning to me as a writer.

What I’ll do in my review is pinpoint some of the memorable insights. There are many more—and other aspects of the text will touch the reader more or less than they did me.

• The poverty and discrimination suffered by those in the Ch’olla provinces (I lived in this region for most of my time in Korea) goes back to the Three kingdoms period, when Paek’che was the weak sister of Koguryo and Silla.
• Why did the great commercial and industrial development of the Song period come to an end? Is it—as Cumings suggests, quoting Mao—that it is ‘too early to tell: maybe ‘the way of Koryo might be…considered better’ than our way of change, progress, tumult.
• The agrarian bureaucracy/balance of power was not strong enough to fight off imperial powers that emerged in asia in the last few centuries. The technically superior west washed away the old Asian order and Korea’s five virtues with it. Ye, Ui, Chi, Sin, and In: order, righteousness, wisdom, trustworthiness, and love.
• the treaty of Kangwa—‘diplomacy with gun to the temple’—established Korea as a vassal state to Japan. The Tonghak rebellions prompted requests for China and Japan to intervene, which Japan capitalized upon.
• The resistance to the Japanese occupation was the defining element for the rulers of the DPRK/North Korea years later.
• Many ‘comfort women’ were mobilized by Korean men! Japan had ‘fractured the Korean national psyche,’ consequences of which continue to this very day.
• Korean atomic bomb victims in Japan fell between the cracks of a Japan that ‘didn’t care’ and a Korea ‘ashamed of their existence.’
• Hodge’s assessment of the dilemma faced by the US fighting communism—the risk of fascism, that is—was right on the button. We aligned with the conservatives, tainted by their association with the Japanese occupation. Maybe it wasn’t a perfect choice. But it appears to be the right one given the circumstances.
• While the author’s assessment of ‘how the Korean War started’ are out of the recent ‘blame everyone for everything’ school of historical journalism, the fact remains that Korea in the post WWII period was a toy for the superpowers. Russia made clear their decision to stay out of the fighting, even if Stalin played diplomatic chess with Jacob Malik on the Security Council. China, in contrast, clearly leaned toward the North with a few weeks of the war’s start. Overall Cumings analyses of the War itself are the weakest part of the book. His idea that our decision to cross the parallel ‘turned containment logic on its head’ is ridiculous: the idea that other countries can attack without worrying their own boundaries (however tenuous) will be violated is absurd. Nor are his sympathies particularly well hidden: when the Korean armies break contact on our rush north after In’chon, it’s a ‘lure…a trap..a clever ploy;’ when UN armies break contact in the rout after Chosin, it’s a ‘phony war..a hoax.’ He seems enthralled by the possibility that the US would use nuclear weapons in Korea, despite the fact that such weapons were useful only in obliterating large cities, which neither Korea had. And of course we thought about using chemical weapons, napalm, bombing dams and hydroelectric plants..sheesh, you would think there was a war going on or something. To his credit he never utters a peep about the absurdities of Biological weapons—except to say well dammit man, the Chinese and NKPA thought they were being used! Isn’t that enough for the carping left, that we struck fear into the hearts of our enemies? He does admit in a footnote that massive inoculation took place. You mean it wouldn’t have otherwise? Personally, you could skip this chapter entirely and enjoy the book much more.
• The chapter on industrialization gets back to the good stuff. South Korea developed for 4 reasons: it was in the US corner, its civil servants were well trained and literate, slush funds favored the right industries at the right time, and Korea (as much of asia) picked up labor intensive industries cast off by the west. Some echoes are heard: development bypasses the Cholla provinces, and Kwangju’s seeds were sown. In the North, like all communist countries the burst of state planning and heavy industry and shot its wad by the late 1960s. Recent famine and even reports of cannibalism make his suggestions that the ‘basket case scenario’ is overdone ring hollow.
• The growth pangs of a country seeking democracy are never pretty and I’ll let the reader enjoy the details. My overall comment is that, seeing Seoul bash, kick, kill and burn its own citizens, Korea sure could use the right to keep and bear arms. I have always been amazed at how tolerant the Koreans are of abuse by higher authority. They have a streak of cruelty that anyone who has lived there more than a few days is likely to see.
• His discussion of the Koreans in America promptly centers on the ‘model minority’ issue and the civil rights movements. A disappointing chapter…he quacks about ‘racism among Korean Americans’ and can’t spare a single word for black leaders who call Koreans names use white guys never dreamed of. Face it, Cumings: Jesse, Sharpton, Schumer and Calypso Louie see any successful minority as a threat to their entitlement programs. Put a Korean on the Supreme Court!

Overall a good book with many enjoyable parts. The ancient history is best. If Cumings would leave the war to the warriors, the economy to the economists, and the communist movement to the dustbin, it would be much better.