Gi-Wook Shin is Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; founding director of the Korean Studies Program; Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and Associate Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. Michael Robinson is Associate Professor of Korean History at Indiana University. Soon Won Park is a lecturer in Korean studies at Keio University in Tokyo. Daqing Yang is Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, George Washington University.

Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson have edited a book that brings together academics from a range of disciplines to present a comprehensive perspective of Korea’s colonial period from a more integrative and pluralist viewpoint… In taking on an alternative view of Korea’s colonial period, the book provides a valuable addition to the Korean historical literature. The rationale is well argued and avoids disparaging previous work. Nationalist biases (both Korean and Japanese) are avoided and editors and contributors project a richness of perspective that allows for a reassessment of the importance of the colonial period in the development of the modern Korean state.