Koreas Development Under Park Chung Hee

Based on personal interviews with the principal policy-makers of the 1970s, Koreas Development under Park Chung-Hee examines how the president sought to develop South Korea into an independent, autonomous sovereign state both economically and militarily. Kim provides a new narrative in the complex task of exploring the paradoxical nature and effects of Koreas rapid development which maintains that any judgement of Park must consider his achievements in the socio-economic, cultural and political context in which they took place. Aspects of Parks government analyzed include:
*his abhorrence of Koreas reliance on the US presence
*the Korean model of state-guided industrialization
*Parks rapid development strategy
*the role of the ruling elites
*Parks clandestine nuclear development program
*the heavy chemical industrialisation of the 1970s
The prevailing popularity of Park in the eyes of the Korean public is significant and relevant to their acceptance of how their national development was achieved. This book tells that story while simultaneously recognizing the flaws in the process. With a great deal of material never before published, scholars of Korean politics and history at all levels will find this book a stimulating account of South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.