Offspring of Empire

Annotation According to conventional interpretations, the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 destroyed a budding native capitalist economy on the peninsula and blocked the development of a Korean capitalist class until 1945. Eckert (Korean history, Harvard U.) challenges the standard view and argues that Japanese imperialism, while politically oppressive, was also the catalyst and cradle of modern Korean industrial development. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.