Description
Book SynopsisIn 1948, two years before Cold War tensions resulted in the invasion of South Korea by North Korea that started the Korean War, the first major political confrontation between leftists and rightists occurred on the South Korean island of Cheju, where communist activists disrupted United Nations-sanctioned elections and military personnel were deployed. What began as a counterinsurgency operation targeting 350 local rebels resulted in the deaths of roughly 30,000 uninvolved civilians, 10 percent of the island''s population.
Su-kyoung Hwang''s Korea''s Grievous War recounts the civilian experience of anticommunist violence, beginning with the Cheju Uprising in 1948 and continuing through the Korean War until 1953. Wartime declarations of emergency by both the U.S. and Korean governments were issued to contain communism, but a major consequence of their actions was to contribute to the loss of more than two million civilian lives. Hwang inventories the persecutions of left-
Trade Review
"Su-kyoung Hwang offers not just an invaluable work of historical recovery but also a work of relentless moral and scholarly bravery. Based on research ranging from challenging oral histories to deep dives in the National Archives and Korean-language sources, Korea's Grievous War provides an unflinching and harrowing analysis of anticommunist political violence that is heartbreaking and inspiring." * Christian Appy, author of American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity *
Table of Contents
Note on Transcriptions and Testimonies
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Terror in Cheju Island
Chapter 2. Emergency Laws and the Crisis of Human Rights
Chapter 3. Ideological Persecution and the Massacre of 1950
Chapter 4. Observing Political Violence in Korea
Chapter 5. Politics of Fear in the Bombing of Korea
Chapter 6. The Bereaved Families
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
