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I just moved in to college this weekend and finally have access to a library! I've been learning a little Korean and now I've been reading books on Korean history and culture.
Being a student, I can also request books from other Universities as well. Right now, I'm looking for suggestions on some good books to read regarding the history and culture(The library at my school has a way smaller Korean section compared to Japan and China).
Right now I'm checking out South Korea Since 1980 by Uk Heo and Terence Roehrig.
The book I'm really interested in(but don't have the first two volumes to), is The Korean War from the Korea Institute of Military History. It apparently has a Korean perspective instead of the normal Western perspective which is really neat.
Any suggestions? 
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I read The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies by Micheal Breen and it's a pretty good overview of both Korean history and how Korean culture evolved. It's not very in-depth on any particular issue but it covers a decent amount of just about everything from Ancient Korea, Joseon Korea, Japanese occupation, Korean war, Dictatorships and economic boom, to democratization. A good starting point for an broad understanding of Korea and Korean thinking.
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may i ask how youre learning korean?
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I can recommend both A Concise History of Korea from the Neolithic Period through the Nineteenth Century and A Concise History of Modern Korea: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present by Michael Seth, a history professor at James Madison University. The latter of the two would probably be of more interest to you, dealing with more modern issues of the 20th century. The second book tackles Korea's and later both North and South Korea's economic, cultural, and political developments from the second half of the 19th century until the mid 2000s. They provide a solid overview of Korean history, and are quite thorough in my opinion. One thing to note is that the second book discusses at length the emerging differences between the two Koreas, and the immense changes in each over the course of about 50 years. Chapter wise they are quite long, covering large sections, for example "South Korea from Poverty to Prosperity 1953-1997." It does cover the division and Korean War in detail, along with briefly touching South Korea's culture being spread internationally through TV, film, etc. at the very end. I enjoyed reading these and now I definitely know a lot more than I did before reading them.
Edit: One thing to note: as the title states these books tell a "concise" history of Korea, and do not go into every last detail. They do however, provide a strong overview of Korea's history.
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Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty
It is as good a book as any to get a good understanding of what the North is like.
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On August 20 2012 12:23 jvo wrote:
may i ask how youre learning korean?
I'd reccomend this to start learning the basic idea of Hangul: http://www.learnkoreanlanguage.com/learn-hangul.html
You don't really need to worry about memorizing every character's sound, but reading through the first couple lessons of that and trying the example words will help immensely!
Next, for actually learning the language, TTMIK is pretty good to start out with. It teaches you the words, with two native speakers, and they will also give some thoughts around the context of words(wihich is pretty important as opposed to just saying, 안녕하세요 means hello). http://www.talktomeinkorean.com/category/lessons/level-1/
knowing how Hangul works is really helpful when you're using TTMIK.
I also use Anki(google it). It's a flashcard program and I make flashcards as I go along so it helps me retain the phrases better.
Thank you for the suggestions on books guys! Looking foward to checking this stuff out. And the book on NK should be very interesting. I think we only have two smallish books on NK at our physical library. 
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On August 20 2012 13:46 Suddenly wrote:
I can recommend both A Concise History of Korea from the Neolithic Period through the Nineteenth Century and A Concise History of Modern Korea: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present by Michael Seth, a history professor at James Madison University. The latter of the two would probably be of more interest to you, dealing with more modern issues of the 20th century. The second book tackles Korea's and later both North and South Korea's economic, cultural, and political developments from the second half of the 19th century until the mid 2000s. They provide a solid overview of Korean history, and are quite thorough in my opinion. One thing to note is that the second book discusses at length the emerging differences between the two Koreas, and the immense changes in each over the course of about 50 years. Chapter wise they are quite long, covering large sections, for example "South Korea from Poverty to Prosperity 1953-1997." It does cover the division and Korean War in detail, along with briefly touching South Korea's culture being spread internationally through TV, film, etc. at the very end. I enjoyed reading these and now I definitely know a lot more than I did before reading them.
Edit: One thing to note: as the title states these books tell a "concise" history of Korea, and do not go into every last detail. They do however, provide a strong overview of Korea's history.
Just seconding this suggestion. I recently read the first for a bit of light reading, and it provides an excellent overview. Still trying to cross out a few more books on my reading list before I start the second book, but the historian is quite excellent, and his writing style isn't too dry.
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On August 21 2012 11:05 Kohonski wrote:I'd reccomend this to start learning the basic idea of Hangul: http://www.learnkoreanlanguage.com/learn-hangul.htmlYou don't really need to worry about memorizing every character's sound, but reading through the first couple lessons of that and trying the example words will help immensely! Next, for actually learning the language, TTMIK is pretty good to start out with. It teaches you the words, with two native speakers, and they will also give some thoughts around the context of words(wihich is pretty important as opposed to just saying, 안녕하세요 means hello). http://www.talktomeinkorean.com/category/lessons/level-1/knowing how Hangul works is really helpful when you're using TTMIK. I also use Anki(google it). It's a flashcard program and I make flashcards as I go along so it helps me retain the phrases better. Thank you for the suggestions on books guys! Looking foward to checking this stuff out. And the book on NK should be very interesting. I think we only have two smallish books on NK at our physical library.
thank you very much, this will help me a lot
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haha ive already been reading this, thanks for everything mizU
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EPT
