North Korean soldiers at the inter-Korean village of Panmunjom in Sept. 2015 | Image: NK News
In “Korea: A New History of South and North,” the prominent academics Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo paint in broad brushstrokes a panorama of history that stretches from the mythical god-king Tangun’s founding of Korea over 4,000 years ago to the divided peninsula of the present day.
While citing scholarly research, the authors also seek to appeal to a broader audience by peppering the text with references to Korean pop culture from south of the Demilitarized Zone — from girl band Blackpink and the fashionable shopping district of Gangnam to the 2020 Academy Award-winning film “Parasite.”
In “Korea: A New History of South and North,” the prominent academics Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo paint in broad brushstrokes a panorama of history that stretches from the mythical god-king Tangun’s founding of Korea over 4,000 years ago to the divided peninsula of the present day.
While citing scholarly research, the authors also seek to appeal to a broader audience by peppering the text with references to Korean pop culture from south of the Demilitarized Zone — from girl band Blackpink and the fashionable shopping district of Gangnam to the 2020 Academy Award-winning film “Parasite.”
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Stephen Mercado is a retired officer of the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise (originally the Foreign Broadcast Information Service). A researcher primarily interested in Japanese intelligence history and Asian open-source intelligence, he earned a master’s degree in international affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is the author of "The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Elite Intelligence School" (Brassey’s, 2002), several articles and a few dozen book reviews.
