Letters from Korean History 4

책 소개

Preface to the translation History in Northeast Asia is like a minefield. Riddled with unresolved issues, controversies, disputed territory and conflicting ideologies, it often breeds acrimony among governments and peoples in the region. Within many countries, too, blind nationalism, political bias and censorship constantly threaten to distort the picture painted by historians of their country’s past and, by extension, present. Creating a balanced narrative in the midst of such tension and conflicting perspectives is no easy task. But that is what Park Eun-bong appears to have done in Letters from Korean History. Offering children and young readers an unbiased version of their past is one of the kindest and most responsible ways of helping them grow into broad-minded citizens, capable of sustaining peace and cooperation in a region - and world - that grows more interconnected every year but still bears unhealed historical scars and bruises. In Korea, such a history also offers context that can put the country’s current state of division - only sixty-seven years old as of 2015 - into wider perspective. Making any Korean book accessible to readers of English through translation is a privilege. The same goes for Letters from Korean History. In a series of letters addressed to a young reader overseas, the author adopts a conversational style of writing that conveys the ups and downs, ins and outs of Korean history with ease. But while the language is highly accessible, the content is never rendered simplistic or patronizing, and issues that lose some other historians in a fog of nationalism are navigated by Park with the kind of healthy detachment and clarity that inspires confidence in the reader. Progressing from the stones and bones of prehistory all the way to the turbulent twentieth century in the course of five volumes, Letters from Korean History can be browsed as a reference text or plowed through from beginning to end. As with most histories that cover such a long period, the density of information increases as the narrative approaches the present. The relatively recent Joseon period, for example, accounts for two of the five volumes (III and IV), rich as it is in events and meticulously recorded historical data. Letters from Korean History has been a great success in its native country among Korean readers. I hope that this translation will now be of help to ethnic Koreans overseas, others interested in Korea or history in general, Koreans looking to study history and English at the same time, and anybody else who believes that exploring the past is a good way to try and make sense of the confusing, flawed and wonderful present. Ben Jackson

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