When the crucial years after the Korean War are remembered today, histories about North Korea largely recount a grand epic of revolution centering on the ascent of Kim Il Sung to absolute power. Often overshadowed in this storyline, however, are the myriad ways the Korean population participated in party-state projects to rebuild their lives and country after the devastation of the war. North Korea's Mundane Revolution traces the origins of the country's long-term durability in the questions that Korean women and men raised about the modern individual, housing, family life, and consumption. Using a wide range of overlooked sources, Andre Schmid examines the formation of a gendered socialist lifestyle in North Korea by focusing on the localized processes of socioeconomic and cultural change. This style of "New Living" replaced radical definitions of gender and class revolution with the politics of individual self-reform and cultural elevation, leading to a depoliticization of the country's political culture in the very years that Kim Il Sung rose to power.
Andre Schmid is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto.
"North Korea's Mundane Revolution is an intellectual game changer—a brilliant, completely original approach to researching and writing North Korean history."—Carter J. Eckert, author of Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea: The Roots of Militarism, 1866–1945
"A bold and exhilarating work of history. Andre Schmid tells the story of the part that ordinary people played in fleshing out the unique socialist modernity practiced in North Korea. Destined to be a classic in the field, this book is an empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated account of social life in North Korea in one of the most consequential moments of its history. Utterly compelling."—Ruth Barraclough, author of Factory Girl Literature: Sexuality, Violence, and Representation in Industrializing Korea
"Authoritative, engaging, and the product of a lifetime of research on nationhood, North Korea's Mundane Revolution dispenses with tired narratives that reduce the country's history to bizarre tales of the Kim dynasty, state propaganda, and inherent brutality. Drawing on an impressive array of printed materials, this study deeply textures North Korea's socialist revolution, untangles the myths that shroud Cold War ideology, and drives the final nails into the old totalitarian model. This stunning book transcends simplistic portrayals of North Korea, immersing readers in a nuanced exploration of this enigmatic nation."—Theodore Jun Yoo, author of The Koreas: The Birth of Two Nations Divided
352 pp.6 x 9Illus: 36 b/w illustrations
9780520392847$34.95|£30.00Paper
Jan 2024