Beyond Kimchi: History, Culture, and Everyday Life in Korea

Annotation to the book "Not Only Kimchi. History, Culture, and Everyday Life in Korea" by A. Lankov: Renowned orientalist Andrei Lankov describes how everyday life in Korea has changed over the past few centuries, which have been a time of turbulent events and enormous changes for this country. The book consists of essays, each of which is devoted to a specific aspect of everyday life in Korea. Over these three centuries, a small kingdom on the far edge of Eurasia made its first contacts with the West, became a colony of Japan, then regained its independence, and finally, having survived the division between the South and the North and gone through years of bloody civil strife, turned into one of the richest and most unique countries in the world. The book tells how all these events affected the lives of ordinary Koreans: how food and clothing changed, how newspapers and trains appeared, how Korean oligarchs made their first millions, how Koreans became addicted to beer and coffee, how the birth rate changed with the growth of prosperity in the Republic of Korea, and how the South now treats the North Read more…