Rating: 
Summary: Frank and illuminating
Review: A page turner for anyone interested in Korean and East Asian history, culture or politics. Not overly detailed or too broad, Cummins book is elucidating and eye-opening, shedding light on Korea's arcane and ancient history and culture, historical relationship with China and Japan, and recent rise to industrial power. Further revealing is America's involvement and culpability in Korea's division, its ensuing war, and establishment of South Korea's corrupt and undemocratic quasi-puppet gov't. The unfairly demonized North Korean regime is also given a fair shake, as it apears that America's paranoid sentiments towards anything communist often made her the threatening and bellicose super-power, rather than the other way around. Although America's cold-war policy led to it's post-war occupation of S.Korea, alliance with Japan, Korea's former colonizers, and support of military strongmen composed of former Japanese military officers, this ironically flamed the fires of left-wing grass-roots movements and anti-American sentiment in Korea, evident even to this day.
Rating: 
Summary: A passionate, opinionated history
Review: A South Korean college student recently told me that he learned more about his own culture from the works of Bruce Cumings than from any number of Korean scholars. I believe it. Cumings knows and loves Korea, his passion and insight coloring every page of this book. Cumings can name all the significant players in modern Korea and how they fit into the nation's long, proud and tragic history. He rightly is anguished and disappointed by America's role in dividing the Korean peninsula and in keeping it divided (even if I think he exaggerates America's sins and significantly under-emphasizes North Korea's). This is a deeply personal book, too: Cumings includes observations from his own experiences in Korea and from his own family (his wife is Korean). In the hands of a less skilled writer and thinker, these personal insights might be a distraction; in this case, they enrich the book immeasurably. The virtues of Korea's Place in the Sun easily outweigh the vices, which (for this reader anyway) include Cumings' unrelentingly leftist politics. In short, Korea's Place in the Sun is an informed, passionate, opinionated and well-written introduction to a country (two countries, sadly) we should all know a lot more about.
Rating:
Summary: An alternative view
Review: A superb book. A brief overview of Korea's fascinating history, with about half covering pre-1845, and half covering the period since, up until 1997. Some people appear to dismiss the book as too left-wing, but even if you don't agree with Cuming's views you'll be a lot more knowledgeable for having read and thought about them. I personally found it very refreshing to read about opinions that challenge the conventional wisdom on Korea. This book is an essential read for anyone interested in Korea.
Rating: 
Summary: Half of the story, but still not the whole story
Review: Bruce Cumings book is an excellent read for anyone who is knowledgeable on the subject, but is not the best source for anyone with limited knowledge and experience about the history of the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Cumings' book addresses a number of interesting issues and perspectives not normally addressed or focused on elsewhere, but it is an incomplete history of the Korean Peninsula and their relations with the United States of America. Mr. Cumings is an advocate (and prisoner) of his ideological beliefs, so facts and "claims of facts" that support his viewpoint are embellished, while facts, which do not, are ignored. He is quick to identify and highlight any mistake (real or perceived) of the United States of America, while downplaying or ignoring any misdeeds of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He is proud of the Korean people, but that pride severely distorts his viewpoint. Because of this fatal flaw I can only access his book a 3-Star rating, but if you belief you already have a good understanding of Korea and its dynamic history in the last century, this is a good book to broaden your understanding of its extremely interesting history. If you are only going to read one book about Korea, this is NOT the one.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but written from the left
Review: Cumings is a scholar and has written a quality history of Korea, but his politics are leftist and his book will be appreciated primarily by people who share those politics. While acknowledging the destructive actions of the Soviet Union and Japan in Korea, he spends a lot more time discussing the United States's sins. His discussion of South Korea's political history is a catalogue of its human rights abuses, while his chapter on North Korea is primarily a discussion of the philosophy of corporatism and an argument that the North Korean cult of the leader is an outgrowth of ancient Korean traditions, not a Stalinist phenomenon. You can get plenty of Korean history out of this book, but some people will probably be frusterated by the accompanying political commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but written from the left
Review: Cumings is a scholar and has written a quality history of Korea, but his politics are leftist and his book will be appreciated primarily by people who share those politics. While acknowledging the destructive actions of the Soviet Union and Japan in Korea, he spends a lot more time discussing the United States's sins. His discussion of South Korea's political history is a catalogue of its human rights abuses, while his chapter on North Korea is primarily a discussion of the philosophy of corporatism and an argument that the North Korean cult of the leader is an outgrowth of ancient Korean traditions, not a Stalinist phenomenon. You can get plenty of Korean history out of this book, but some people will probably be frusterated by the accompanying political commentary.
Rating:
Summary: An exemplary piece of history! Americans must read this.
Review: Given the extent to which the US has toyed with & violated Korea over the last century, & the fact that North Korea is invoked as a "rogue state" whenever an American politician wants to justify a few billion dollars worth of missiles, one would think educated Americans would know something about this peninsula where, as you read this, 40,000 US troops & thousands of associated expatriates live. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth, & the general lack of reporting - informed or otherwise - in the American media on Korea (few news organizations even maintain correspondents in Seoul) is a further embarrassment. Fortunately, we have this very accessible work by the esteemed Bruce Cumings - an excellent read that is quite obviously very thoroughly researched. The breadth of his sources is staggering, & seems to include many declassified CIA & US military documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The next time CNN runs a soundbyte about Clinton or Albright claiming N. Korea as a reason to violate our 1972 nuclear treaty, labor demonstrations in Seoul, reunification talks, or Korean-Americans, you'll probably know more about the background of the situation than 98% of their audience.
Rating:
Summary: One of the three best books on Korea that I have ever read.
Review: I have read many books about Asia. I currently live in Korea, speak Korean and work as a "Korea Expert." It was a relief to find a book that actually looked at Korea as Korea, and not as a vassal of China or a colony of Japan. The author's views tend to be a bit left of center, but this does not detract from the overall solidity of the book. Excellent reading!!
Rating:
Summary: Reads Like Literature
Review: I loved this book and have read it twice from cover to cover in addition to refering to certain capters regularly. There is no other book that captures the colorful, tragic and compelling story of Korea's modern history half as well as Cuming's opus. The book is a skillful blend of theory (he quotes Focault in the epigram), hard history and ideology. I especially enjoyed the juicy bits of gossip that more "serious" Korean histories always leave out. He writes about Kim Gu's womenizing, Sygman Rhee's paranoia and the CIA's dirty secrets. The book has flaws that are glaring and annoying. Cumings details every attrocity that the dictators in South Korea committed, but writes only of the dubious "achievements" of North Korea, never mentioning things like how many of his own citizens Kim Il-son, North Korea's late "Dear Leader" sent to concentration camps. The harrowing accounts of North Korean defectors of life in the worker's paradise are a glaring and nearly unforgiveable. I would be tempted to say that Cumings had two goals in mind in writing this book: getting in good with Pyoungyang (thus being assured his travel visas always get approved) and annoying the hell out of Seoul (thereby regaining the cult hero status he got in the 80s with his book on the origins of the Korean War with a new generation of South Korean college kids). But, ultimately, I can't stay mad at Cumings. His story of Korea's painful 20th century is told with the verve and deftness of great literature.
Rating:
Summary: A good and opinionated primer
Review: I picked up this book in response to a need to know something about a country I work with on a daily basis. Cumings writes well without boring you to tears or getting ridiculous, and frankly tells you what his bias is before he lays the history on you. (One thing I've recently learned, as an American trying to get a functional knowledge of history in this part of the world, is that it changes a lot depending on who you talk to.) It's not a quick read--it took longer than usual to gut this thing out--but it's also interesting enough to keep you rolling. There's a bit of a run on this book here in Yokosuka, Japan--even though you have to buy it through the Internet or pay a hundred bucks for the import, a lot of folks at my job have picked this up to learn something.
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