The Partition Of Korea After World War II

Sixty years after Korea's partition into South Korea and North Korea, a full understanding of how this partition occurred is still wanting. Based on a careful examination of sources in Russian, English and Korean, including new archival evidence from Moscow, this book seeks to provide this understanding.

Taking into account not only the policies of the Soviet Union and the United States but also the roles played by the Koreans themselves, Jongsoo Lee untangles the complex dynamics of the Korean partition, placing this partition in the context of modern world history and the emerging Cold War. Comparing Korea with Germany, Austria, Finland and elsewhere after World War II, Lee suggests possible alternative outcomes to Korean partition, thus shedding light on Korea's present predicament as she faces the challenges of reunification.

Drawing on multi-archival research in Korean, Russian and English, this book raises and answers new questions about the division of Korea in 1945 and the failure of all efforts for Korean reunification taken between 1945 and 1948 by actors, both Korean and foreign. The main question answered is the complexity and changes in Stalin's policy toward Korea.

Lee argues that the trusteeship decision is the key to understanding the division's origins and how it became a permanent one. Review: Jongsoo Lee's The Partition of Korea after World War II is an outstanding achievement. Lee provides a comprehensive and complex account of Korea's partition using an astonishingly impressive array of American, Russian, and Korean archival sources.

His thorough and subtle analysis has set a new and very high standard for the subject. Many diplomatic historians aspire to write history from a multinational and multiarchival perspective but fall short: Jongsoo Lee, however, has not. His book is properly subtitled A Global History, --John Earl Haynes, author of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America