Bruce Cumings

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Bruce Cumings is a historian, and professor at the University of Chicago, specializing in modern Korean history and contemporary international relations in East Asia.

In his youth, Cumings was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Korea. He was one of the founding members of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars and published extensively in its journal, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. His father conducted research for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is married to Meredith Jung-En Woo, a professor of political science, specializing in Korean politics, at the University of Michigan.

His research focus is on 20th century international history, relationships between the United States and East Asia, East Asian political economy, and modern Korean history.

Cumings has been characterized by some as having a left-wing bias. [1] One such critic said "His eagerness to cast American officials and policy in the worst possible light, however, often leads him to confuse chronological cause and effect and to leap to judgments that cannot be supported by the documentation he cites or ignores." ^[1]. He has also been criticized for implying that the North Korean prison system is better than the U.S. inner city prisons. [2]

However he says in his books, "I have no sympathy for the North, which is the author of most of its own troubles...". He is considered by others to be among the most influential experts on the region.

He is presently completing a book entitled Industrial Behemoth: The Northeast Asian Political Economy in the 20th Century, which seeks to understand the industrialization of Japan, both Koreas, Taiwan, and parts of China, and the ways that scholars and political leaders have viewed that development.

[edit] References

^ Millet, The War for Korea 1945-1950 (2005)

[edit] Books

The Origins of the Korean War (2 vols). Princeton University Press,1981, 1990.
Korea : the unknown war by Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, London: Viking, 1988. Brief "photojournalism" account of the Korean War with many photographs.
War and Television.Verso, 1993.
Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History. Norton, 1997.
Parallax Visions: American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century. Duke University Press, forthcoming.
North Korea: Another Country. New Press, 2004.