• Title/Summary/Keyword: Cold War History

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"A Very Sudden Thing": Recapturing Cold War History in Philip Roth's American Pastoral

  • Lew, Seunggu
    • English & American cultural studies
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.49-72
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    • 2010
  • As the first of Philip Roth's recent series of novels that delve into American Cold War history deeply entwined with the post-war Jewish American experience, American Pastoral traces the tragic fall of a third-generation Jewish American named Seymour "Swede" Levov, whose dream of complete assimilation to the post-ethnic American paradise is irrecoverably disrupted when his young daughter blows up the local post office to protest against the Vietnam War. This essay proposes to examine Swede Levov's interrupted pursuit of the American dream by locating it within specific Cold War contexts and national imaginaries propagated particularly during the years from John F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson. In so doing, I will argue that Roth presents a paradoxical vision of Jewish American identity that could be acquired by performing perpetual self-effacement and submergence into the non-place of anonymity and doubleness, a mythic location of the post-ethnic Cold War American family. Levov's life becomes true part of the mythic narrative of American history when he realizes that his life, just like the nation's history, is a series of temporalities radically discontinued without any manageable detour ot divine bypass to cross over. Rather than indicating Roth's retraction from the postmodern understanding of subjectivity, the novel's historical realism, I will argue, serves to illuminate the postmodern conditions of American Cold War history and ethnic identity.

Return of Geopolitics and the East Asian Maritime Security (지정학의 부활과 동아시아 해양안보)

  • Lee, Choon-Kun
    • Strategy21
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    • s.36
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    • pp.5-32
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    • 2015
  • Geopolitics or Political Geography is an essential academic field that should be studied carefully for a more comprehensive analysis of international security relations. However, because of its tarnished image as an ideology that supported the NAZI German expansion and aggression, geopolitics has not been regarded as a pure academic field and was rejected and expelled from the academic communities starting from the Cold War years in 1945. During the Cold War, ideology, rather than geography, was considered more important in conducting and analyzing international relations. However, after the end of the Cold War and with the beginning of a new era in which territorial and religious confrontations are taking place among nations - including sub national tribal political organizations such as the Al Quaeda and other terrorist organizations - geopolitical analysis again is in vogue among the scholars and analysts on international security affairs. Most of the conflicts in international relations that is occurring now in the post-Cold War years can be explained more effectively with geopolitical concepts. The post - Cold War international relations among East Asian countries are especially better explained with geopolitical concepts. Unlike Europe, where peaceful development took place after the Cold War, China, Japan, Korea, the United States, Taiwan and Vietnam are feeling more insecure in the post-Cold War years. Most of the East Asian nations' economies have burgeoned during the Cold War years under the protection of the international security structure provided by the two superpowers. However, after the Cold War years, the international security structure has not been stable in East Asia and thus most of the East Asian nations began to build up stronger military forces of their own. Because most of the East Asian nations' national security and economy depend on the oceans, these nations desire to obtain more powerful navies and try to occupy islands, islets, or even rocks that may seem like a strategic asset for their economy and security. In this regard, the western Pacific Ocean is becoming a place of confrontation among the East Asian nations. As Robert Kaplan, an eminent international analyst, mentioned, East Asia is a Seascape while Europe is a Landscape. The possibility of international conflict on the waters of East Asia is higher than in any other period in East Asia's international history.

Cold War Liberalism in Postwar Japan: An Interpretation of Maruyama Masao's Realistic Liberalism (냉전과 일본의 자유주의- 마루야마 마사오의 냉전자유주의와 리얼리즘)

  • Jang, In-Seong
    • 동북아역사논총
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    • no.59
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    • pp.150-186
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    • 2018
  • This paper explains what Japanese progressive liberalism was in postwar Japan by clarifying Maruyama Masao's "Cold War Liberalism," focusing especially on his realism and nationalism searching for "democracy" and "peace" in the context of the early Cold War Japan. Maruyama's Cold War liberalism can be grasped from two perspectives: how the Cold War defined his liberalism and how Maruyama interpreted the Cold War as a liberalist in postwar Japan. The liberal interpretation of the Cold War captures the spatial manifestations of liberalism in the Cold War while Cold War liberalism was to grasp the temporal succession of modern Japan. Maruyama revealed his liberal thinking by combining it to his idea of nationalism and realism. He was concerned about the reshaping of the fascist atmosphere provoked by anti-communism emerging from 186 | 동북아역사논총 59호the Cold War confrontation structure. He sought "neutrality" and "peace" to overcome the so-called "two worlds" of the Cold War. And he stressed the importance of "fair judgment" and "autonomous association" to restrain the fascistic atmosphere in postwar Japan. For Maruyama, subjectivity aimed at the concept of "nation" rather than "citizen," and nationalism was a condition for "democracy" and "peace" in postwar Japan. Maruyama's critical liberalism worked through nationalism and realism.

The Development of US Navy's Maritime Strategy and the ROK's Tasks with a Focus on the Roles of Aircraft Carrier (미(美) 해군의 해양전략 발전과 우리의 과제 - 항모운용을 중심으로 -)

  • Kwon, Young-Il
    • Strategy21
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    • s.41
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    • pp.30-51
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    • 2017
  • Neighboring powers in the Korean Peninsula have started to develop and operate aircraft carriers or equivalent forces to cope with rising North Korean nuclear and missile threats and also to show its national might. For example, the United States has added a aircraft carrier from the 3rd fleet to western pacific theater of operation, while Peoples Republic of China is undergoing operational test of Liaoning as well as preparing for christening of its 2nd aircraft carrier. Japan is flexing its muscle as well by deploying Izumo capable of operating F-35B to Southeast Asia to participate in multilateral exercises starting this year. It is a high time to know more about aircraft carriers or similar types in terms of maritime strategy and history. The U.S. has had by far the vast amount of experiences in utilizing aircraft carrier that it would be beneficial for us to examine U.S. perspectives and its application in the Korean Peninsula. It will provide us with insights to understand and predict what it would be like in times of crisis in the Korean Peninsula in the perspective of aircraft carrier's involvement. This paper intends to show some aspects of future conflicts in the Korean Peninsula and how the ROK Navy can best be ready for such situation. For research purpose, U.S. maritime strategy has been developed in stages ; establishment phase, WWI phase, WWII phase, Cold war phase, post Cold war phase. Each phase includes such factors as threats, strategic concept, applications, and ways to improve maritime strategy. Finally, the role of aircraft carrier based on past history as well as future conflict shines the importance to have power projection capabilities for the ROK Navy. The intrinsic nature of the navy in the world is to project power ashore just as history proved it.

The Study of Transitional Justice in El Salvador (발전전략으로서의 과거청산 - 엘살바도르 이행기 정의의 특수성 사례 분석 -)

  • Noh, Yong-Seok
    • Iberoamérica
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.41-67
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    • 2011
  • El Salvador had suffered some 75,000 casualties, mostly civilian, from violent civil conflict(1980-92). In 1992, after negotiations, the government and FMLN signed a historic comprehensive peace accord which brought an end to the war and instituted wide-reaching political and social reforms. Many scholars call it as Transitional Justice in El Salvador. Transitional Justice in El salvador has had two identifiable stages. In the First stage, institutional reforms, such as DDR(disarmament, demobilization, reintegration), and a truth commission were implemented. The second phase corresponds to the period subsequent to the truth commission report, with the failure to implement the commission's recommendations, including those related to reparations and justice. This essay explain how was transitional justice in El salvador different from the other cases, and what was the purpose of extraordinary transitional justice in El Salvador. In detail, the first section of this essay examines the history of the civil war and peace process in El Salvador, and then explores the relationships between cold war and transitional justice in El Salvador. Finally, this essay suggests that truth commission's mandate which investigate 'serious acts of violence that have occurred since 1980' was very important role to accomplish peace and transitional justice in El Salvador.

"And not just the men, but the women and the children, too": Gendered Images of Violence in Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian Cold War Museums

  • Vann, Michael G.
    • SUVANNABHUMI
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    • v.12 no.1
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    • pp.7-47
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    • 2020
  • This article is a sub-section of a comparative analysis of depictions of violence in Jakarta's Museum of the Indonesian Communist Party's Treachery, Ho Chi Minh City's War Remnants Museum, and Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. In comparing these public history sites, I analyze how memories of mass violence were central to state formation in both Suharto's anti-Communist New Order (1966-1998), the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (1976-present), and Cambodia since the collapse of Democratic Kampuchea (1979-present). While this comparison points out specific distinctions about the role of the military, the nature of revolution, and conceptions of gender, it argues for a central similarity in the use of a mythology of victimization in building these post-conflict nation-states. This article focuses on my gendered analysis of the use of images of women and children in each museum. Depending on context and political purpose, these museums cast women as tragic victim, revolutionary heroine, or threat to the social order. My analysis of gender places stereotypical images of violence against women (the trope of women and children as the ultimate victims) in conversation with dark fantasies of women as perpetrators of savage violence and heroic images of women liberated by participation in violence.

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A Study on Cause of Regional Conflict (지역분쟁의 원인 연구)

  • Kim, Sung-Woo
    • Convergence Security Journal
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.157-162
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    • 2019
  • The nature of war includes the concept of war and the purpose of the war, as well as its nature, attributes and personality. The war that started with the history of mankind has started to achieve various purposes. There were also wars that took place to get territory or slaves and resources. There was a war to spread ideology and religion. The cause of war has diversified due to the purpose of various wars. In this study, we analyzed the causes of regional conflicts that have occurred on the earth since World War II. The regional and structural explanations reported in most papers attempting to define the causes of small regional conflicts and new forms of war in each region are not entirely credible. It is clear that the Cold War has intensified civil war. Most of the causes of these wars should be considered to be within the country.

Binarism, Memories, and Controversies over So Far from the Bamboo Grove (『머나 먼 대나무 숲』의 논란을 통해서 본 이분법과 기억의 문제)

  • Rhee, Suk Koo
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.58 no.5
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    • pp.881-901
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    • 2012
  • Since 2006, heated debates have taken place on both sides of the Pacific over the historical accuracy of Yoko Kawashima Watkins's So Far from the Bamboo Grove, the "historical novel" that depicts the author's painful escape from the just-liberated Korean peninsula to Japan. This study re-visits the controversies that fired up not only the whole Korean society but also not a few Americans and the American press. However, unlike most previous Korean studies on this novel, this study mostly focuses on both the responses of Korean feminists and those of Americans and the American press to the issue. This paper argues that the Korean feminists, who criticized their male compatriots for their feverish reaction, have the same problem as their compatriots, that is, the problem of seeing through a binary perspective that drowns or blurs individual differences. A similar framework is found operating in the Boston Globe's articles on the same issue. This study proceeds to discuss the pitfalls of liberalism underlying the American parents' and the American civil organizations' defence of Watkins and analyzes their poor historical awareness. The conclusion of this study is that So Far from the Bamboo Grove, dictated by an ideological prolepsis, erroneously inscribes the Cold War in the geographical space of the pre-Cold-War Korean peninsula and, as a result, symptomatically participates in the United States' anti-Communist world view.

Southeast Asia in International History: Justification and Exploration

  • Gin, Ooi Keat
    • SUVANNABHUMI
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.81-118
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    • 2020
  • Despite its centrality at a pivotal crossroads of both land and sea of East-West trade, communications and travel, the region now known as Southeast Asia provides very few scholarly works situating or featuring it in an international context. Because of this paucity, there is immense scope for exploration. But prior to further explorations, justification is needed to establish that Southeast Asia, as a region, is a subject of interest, relevance, and significance in a global context. Southeast Asia was home to several empires whose reach transcended the region and beyond. Southeast Asia in, and as part of international history as an area of study is therefore justifiable. Moreover, other factors come into play, viz. geography, resources, migration, diffusion of ideas and beliefs from without and accommodation from within, shared experience of imperialism and colonialism, decolonization, and the Cold War, and the collective fate under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), that further bolster its rationalization as a component of international history. Explorations, on the other hand, examine issues and obstacles that contribute to the paucity of works on Southeast Asia in international history. Furthermore, in contextualizing Southeast Asia in international history, there might appear challenges that need to be identified, confronted, and resolved.

The Historical Understanding of the U. S. Secret Records Management (미국의 비밀기록관리체제에 대한 역사적 이해)

  • Lee, Kyong-Rae
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.23
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    • pp.257-297
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    • 2010
  • The U. S. government has a long history to classify and manage governmental records which are created, collected, and preserved for itself. During the colonial period before the independence, the U. S. mostly practiced the maintenances of secret records and restrictions of access to the records following a long convention without any specific legal authority. Since establishment of the U. S. Constitution, the government had kept secret records on the basis of constitutional authority. However, the U. S. government began to take shape the secret records management system when it participated in the World War I, which required the system to reflect the needs in reality to manage drastic increases in important military and foreign relation documents. The World War II made the U. S. government strengthen its secret records management system, and its conception of secret records management system at that time has sustained until now. It can be said that the current secret records management system of the U. S. government continues to be managed by constitutional authorities and the executive orders which are opt to change. This article intends to review the secret records management system of the U. S. from the initial history of the U. S. to the Cold War. To understand its system of secret management, the paper investigates the U. S. secret records management history by dividing into three periods: the period of establishment of its tradition(the Colonial era~just before the WWI); the period of taking shape of its system (the WWI~the WWII); and the period of current conception of its system. The criteria of these divisions are created based on the differences of the laws relevant to the secret records and the application methods of secret management system in reality.