The Gwangju Uprising

The book explores the implications of the democratic movement that took place in Gwangju, a southwestern city of Korea, in May 1980 when military paratroopers brutally crushed a group of protesters who demonstrated against General Chun Doo-hwan, who was about to become the country’s president. Because of the event now known as the Gwangju Uprising, 191 people perished and 852 were wounded.

In The Gwangju Uprising, Choi Jungwoon analyzes various discourses and motives of the uprising and vividly paints the demonstrators’ street battles against paratroopers. He gives an in-depth scrutiny of the participants’ mentalities and incentives, and the type of brutality involved. He also examines the stages the participants went through during the uprising, from the peace and togetherness they had at first, to the internal conflict that soon followed, to the lessons they learned in the uprising’s aftermath. Choi argues that the united front experienced by the participants during the uprising was a driving force that changed modern Korean history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Choi Jungwoon is a professor of international relations at Seoul National University. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago. His publications include “The English Ten Hours Act: Official Knowledge and the Collective Interest of the Ruling Class” (1984) and “Ideological Configuration in Korean Politics” (1998).

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Yu Young-nan is a freelance translator based in Seoul. Her most recent translation is Yom Sang-seop’s novel Three Generations (Archipelago Books, 2005).