Abstract:

In spite of the fact that the Korean War and the Vietnam War had many commonalities, including the participants, the international environment, and the location, only few studies examine the influences from the Korean War on the Vietnam War. Professor Park’s guest lecture thus will particularly focus on the United States and China who may be regarded as the initiators of the Korean war, and who were major parties in the Vietnam war since 1964. The analysis will also provide meaningful answers to several mysteries on the failure of the U.S., which is connected to the legacy of the Korean War.

Presenter: Professor PARK Tae Gyun (朴泰均) (Professor of Modern Korean History, Seoul National University)

Tae-Gyun Park, is a Professor of Korean Studies at Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute (HYI) from 1997-1999, and a HYI Coordinate Research Scholar from 2007-2008. He studied Korean history (B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.) at Seoul National University. His dissertation is on "Origins of the Koreas’ Development Plans in the 1950s and 1960s". He has served as a standing advisor to the television documentary series “A Biographical History of Contemporary Korea” (KBS) and “The Truth Can Now Be Told” (MBC) and an editorial board member of academic journals Pacific Affairs (published by the University of British Columbia) and Yeoksa Bipyeong (Historical Criticism). His works include A Study of Jo Bong-am, Regional Order in East Asia: From Empire to Community (co-authorship), The Korean War: The Unfinished War, the War That Must End, and Ally and Empire: Two Myths in Korea-U.S. Relationship (AKS Press,2012) and "Beyond the Myth: Reassessing the Security Crisis in the mid 1960s on the Korean Peninsula" (Pacific Affairs, 2009).

Moderator: Dr. Florian Pölking (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter IKS, Freie Universität Berlin)