North Korea is perhaps the most intriguing, infamous and enigmatic nation of our modern world. Yet how many of us know its full history, and how it came to be? How can we understand such a strange, isolated state?This new edition seeks to provide some answers to these questions. Starting with its origins in the colonial period, Michael J Seth masterfully traces how North Korea transformed itself from a Soviet-style socialist state to the ultra-nationalist, dynastic...

Korea was one of the last countries in Asia to be visited by Westerners, and its borders have remained largely unchanged since it was unified in the seventh century. Though it is one of the world's oldest and most ethnically homogeneous states, Korea was not born in a vacuum. Geographically isolated, the country was heavily influenced by powerful China and was often used as a bridge to the mainland by Japan.Calling themselves as "a shrimp among whales," Koreans borrowed elements of...

This book analyzes how de facto states—including Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Kosovo, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somaliland, and Taiwan—have developed without recognition of sovereignty from the international community.

Now in a fully revised and updated edition including new primary sources and illustrations, this comprehensive and balanced history of modern Korea explores the social, economic, and political issues it has faced since being catapulted into the wider world at the end of the nineteenth century. Placing this formerly insular society in a global context, Michael J. Seth describes how this ancient, culturally and ethnically homogeneous society first fell victim to Japanese imperialist expansio...

An engaging history covering a century of conflict on the Korean PeninsulaKorea at War recounts how two separate nations emerged on the Korean peninsula as the result of devastating conflicts involving provocative personalities and superpower intrigues. The topics covered in this fascinating book include:The brutal years of Japanese colonial rule which began with Japan's annexation of Korea and ended with its defeat in World War II—and which ...

Kim Il Sung ruled his country, North Korea, for longer and shaped it more profoundly than almost any other modern leader. He created a unique and seemingly bizarre and menacing political and social system, establishing a dynasty that has maintained it for two more generations. Yet he remains a curiously inaccessible, little understood figure, partly due to the closed and secretive nature of the state he founded. Michael J. Seth puts together what we know of Kim’s life from all avail...

Having spent centuries in the shadows of its neighbors China and Japan, Korea is now the object of considerable interest for radically different reasons—the South as an economic success story and for its vibrant popular culture; the North as the home to one of the world's most repressive regimes, at once both bizarre and menacing.Korea: A Very Short Introduction explores the history, culture, and society of a deeply divided region. Michael Seth considers what it means to b...

Revived with new intensity at the end of the twentieth century, questions of meaning and interpretation in music continue to generate widespread interest and give rise to new research directions and methods. This collection of essays brings together leading musicologists and music theorists working across a range of genres--classical, jazz, and popular--to offer fresh perspectives on a concern that bestrides every area of musical scholarship. While many accounts of musical meaning tend to ...

A sweet and fast-paced contemporary teen romance from USA Today bestselling author Kristina Forest.High school senior Margot Whitman is an intern at Healing Hearts Inc., the company that created the innovative pill that can erase a person’s heartbreak overnight. Every weekend, Margot witnesses patients get cured of their broken hearts. Meanwhile, she’s nursing a heartbreak of her own. With college on the horizon and their futures taking them in different d...

Effective financial planning for executives and entrepreneurs is complex, dense, and impossible to reduce to a single, easy-to-understand formula. Designed to emphasize the importance of effective, targeted financial planning, this book begins by telling a story about a fictional, but plausible, power couple and their family who (spoiler alert!) do pretty much everything wrong in securing their financial future. In most cases, they don’t do the things needed because they don’t know what th...

Effective financial planning for executives and entrepreneurs is complex, dense, and impossible to reduce to a single, easy-to-understand formula. Designed to emphasize the importance of successful, targeted financial planning, this book begins by telling a story about a fictional, but plausible, power couple and their family who (spoiler alert!) do pretty much everything wrong in securing their financial future. In most cases, they don’t do the things needed because they don’t know what t...

To preserve the memory of their service during the tumultuous decade since their commissioning as Army officers, members of the West Point class of 2004 have written The Strong Gray Line. This class suffered the highest casualty rate since those that graduated during the Vietnam War. In this book, thirteen of their classmates who lost their lives fighting the Global War on Terror are profiled to help the reader gain an understanding of the bond forged between classmates during time at West...