Cornerstone of the Nation: The Defense Industry and the Building of Modern

Speaker: Peter Banseok Kwon, Associate Professor of Korean Studies, University of Albany

Moderator: Jungwon Kim, King Sejong Associate Professor of Korean Studies, EALAC, Columbia University

Professor Kwon is the author of Cornerstone of the Nation: The Defense Industry and the Building of Modern Korea under Park Chung Hee (Harvard University Asia Center, 2024), which examines the origins and development of South Korea’s defense industry during Park Chung Hee’s rule and its impact on the nation’s socio-economic and military transformation. (E-book available on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble.) As a Fulbright US Scholar in South Korea for the 2024-2025 academic year, he is currently working on his second book, Column of the Nation: The Yulgok Operation and South Korea’s Global Rise, which investigates the Yulgok Operation and its multifaceted role in South Korea’s national development trajectory.

Professor Kwon will speak about his new book, Cornerstone of the Nation: The Defense Industry and the Building of Modern Korea under Park Chung Hee, released by Harvard University Press in March 2024.

Cornerstone of the Nation is the first historical account of the complex alliance of military and civilian forces that catapulted South Korea’s conjoined militarization and industrialization under Park Chung Hee (1961–1979). Kwon reveals how Park’s secret program to build an independent defense industry spurred a total mobilization of business, science, labor, and citizenry, all of which converged in military-civilian forces that propelled an unprecedented model of modernization in Korea.

Drawing on largely untapped declassified materials from Korea and personal interviews with contemporaneous participants in the nascent defense industry, as well as declassified US documents and other external sources, Kwon weaves together oral histories and documentary evidence in an empirically rich narrative that details how militarization shaped the nation’s rapid economic, technological, political, and social transformation. Cornerstone of the Nation makes the case that South Korea’s arms development under Park may be the most durable and yet least acknowledged factor behind the country’s rise to economic prominence in the late twentieth century. Through an analysis that simultaneously engages some of the most contested issues in Korean historiography, development literature, contemporary politics, and military affairs, this book traces Korea’s distinct pathway to becoming a global economic force.

This event is hosted by the Center for Korean Research at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

PLEASE NOTE: For non-Columbia guests, registration is required to access the Morningside campus 24 hours prior to the event. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 12:00 PM on Wednesday, October 8 for campus access.

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