Author: Kimiya Dadasi

Date of Publication: December 10^th, 2008

Publisher: Humanitas

Park Jung Hee Government which had faced a sudden end in 1979 has been criticized in Korean society. With the democratization, Park Government has been criticized for the market distortion brought by the national centered economic growth, economic development centered by the oligarchs, human rights oppression, and the reality of “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” However, through the entrance of the neoliberalism, economic crisis and market abuse, it is revaluated as a national led economic development strategy, and the attempts on revaluating are being made on Park Jung Hee and his government on the economic development strategy.

But the evaluation regarding the outcome of Park Government is still based not only on the left and the right ideologies, but also is based on the fragmented and one-sided approach while analyzing national level and world systemic level, and as a result, Park government can be placed as a myth in Korean economic development.

The new arrival from Humanitas “Choice of Park Jung Hee Government: Export Intended Industrialization and Cold-war System in the 1960s” focuses on the reversion of Korean political economics in the 1960s and 70s, views the conflicts and intersection points between the policies of Park’s authoritarian government which must prove its own legitimacy as a military regime in the economic system resulted by the cold war, and observes the affected results on Korean political economics. The author especially analyzes the development of Korean economics with microscopic and macroscopic dimension while stressing diplomatic policies made among Korea, the U.S. and Japan, as well as internal policy decision.