Out in Paperback / Everlasting Flower

Everlasting Flower -- A History of Korea by Keith Pratt, UChicago Press '07, $27, 320 pages, ISBN #1-86189-335-3. Index, sources and further reading, discography, no notes. b&w image sprinkled through text.

The author, a historian at the University of Durham, issues a disclaimer at the outset: "This is not the kind of in-depth study that comes from concentrated research and a well-earned PhD thesis. Rather, it is a personal impression of a country, formed over half a lifetime's subjective and loving (if sometimes frustrated) acquaintance with it."

Pratt breaks his narrative into three parts: The Creation of State Identity, including Korea's earliest days through the Silla, Koryo and early to mid Choson periods; A Century of Insecurity, featuring the Hermit Kingdom and incursion, modernization and reform; and A Century of Suffering, including a culture under threat, partition and war and post-War Korea. Sadly, particularly for those living in North Korea, that suffering continues.