The Promised Republic

The Promised Republic is a deeply researched examination of South Korea’s developmental period under Park Chung Hee, focusing on complex political dynamics of urban development in Seoul. By challenging politicized and simplified narratives of top-down modernization or total resistance, the work presents a multi-layered analysis that is significant and relevant to modern Korean history and development literature. The combination of archival and ethnographic details with a strong analytical approach makes this work a significant scholarly contribution, relevant to broader discussions of state-society relations, the politics of dissent, social inequity, housing justice, and authoritarian regimes in East Asia.– “Peter Banseok Kwon, University of Albany”The Promised Republic tackles the forgotten issue of how South Korea’s rapid industrialization and urbanization left a large number of rural-to-urban migrants living in extralegal shantytowns and how they struggled to find their place in South Korean society. With the judicious use of rich archival material from magazines, newspapers, government documents, ethnographic field notes, photographs, and films from the period, Russell Burge provides an intimate portrayal of the lives of shantytown residents–giving primacy to the voices of the shantytown residents themselves.– “Namhee Lee, University of California Los Angeles”

Russell Burge is Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Korean History at Indiana University Bloomington.