Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

A translation into English of the most important Korean book on the Kwangju massacre, by a participant who was taken prisoner and tortured by the Republic of Korea army. With additional essays by Bruce Cumings and Tim Shorrock.

Oberdorfer, Don. The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

A seasoned Washington Post journalist on the two Koreas. Oberdorfer is outstanding on the 1994 crisis over North Korean nuclear experiments.

Shapiro, Michael. The Shadow in the Sun. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.

Powerful observations of South Korea in the last years of Chun Doo-hwan, including details on the legacy of the Kwangju massacre.

Okinawa

Field, Norma. In the Realm of a Dying Emperor. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.

Field’s chapter on Shoichi Chibana, pp. 33–104, is the best introduction in English to the injustices inflicted on Okinawa by Japan and the United States.

Johnson, Chalmers, ed. Okinawa: Cold War Island. Cardiff, Calif.: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999.

A collection of essays on Okinawa by such authorities as Masahide Ota, Kozy Amemiya, Koji Taira, Steve Rabson, Michael Millard, Patrick Smith, Carolyn Bowen Francis, Shunji Taoka, Masayuki Sasaki, and Gavan McCormack. It can be acquired on-line from http://www.nmjc.org/okinawa_cold_war_island.html.

Ota, Masahide. “The U.S. Occupation of Okinawa and Postwar Reforms in Japan Proper,” in Robert E. Ward and Yoshikazu Sakamoto, eds., Democratizing Japan: The Allied Occupation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987, pp. 284–305.

An authoritative treatment of Okinawa under American rule by the scholar who became governor of Okinawa Prefecture from 1990 to 1998.

Yahara, Colonel Hiromichi. The Battle for Okinawa. New York: Wiley, 1995. Introduction and commentary by Frank B. Gibney.

Yahara was the highest-ranking Japanese officer to survive the Battle of Okinawa; this is the battle seen from the Japanese side. Gibney, who as a combat translator debriefed Yahara, reprints his original prisoner-of-war interrogation reports.

Overseas American Military Bases and Their Problems

Moon, Katharine H. S. Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Paperbound.

A brilliant doctoral dissertation on how the American and South Korean governments collaborate to provide prostitutes for the 37,000 American troops based in South Korea.

Sturdevant, Saundra Pollock, and Brenda Stoltzfus. Let the Good Times Roll: Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asia. New York: New Press, 1992. Paperbound.

The standard work on the subject, it is extensively illustrated with photographs by the authors. Included are essays by Walden Bello, Bruce Cumings, and Cynthia Enloe.

NOTES

Introduction: After 9/11

  1. Foreign Affairs 79.5 (September–October 2000), pp. 138–39.

  2. “Die Rolle eines Ersatz-Rom,” Der Spiegel, November 6, 2000, pp. 252–56.

  3. James Risen, “ABCs of Coups,” New York Times, June 18, 2000.

  4. Robert Michael Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), pp. 146–47.

  5. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Les Révélations d’un Ancien Conseiller de Carter: ‘Oui, la CIA est Entrée en Afghanistan avant les Russes . . . ,’ ” Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15–21, 1998; translated by William Blum and David D. Gibbs and published in David D. Gibbs, “Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Retrospect,” International Politics, vol. 37, June 2000, pp. 233–46.

  6. Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1996.

  7. H. Edward Price, Jr., “The Strategy and Tactics of Revolutionary Terrorism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 19, no. 1 (January 1977), p. 53.

  8. Quoted in Robert Moss, Urban Guerrillas: The New Face of Political Violence (London: Maurice Temple Smith, 1972), p. 13.

  9. Simon Jaffrey, “War May Have Killed 10,000 Civilians, Researchers Say,” Guardian, June 13, 2003.

10. Eduardo Galeano, “The Finest Liars in the World,” August 14, 2003, http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/.

11. Meredith Woo-Cumings, “South Korean Anti-Americanism,” Japan Policy Research Institute Working Paper, no. 93, July 2003.

12. Jane Perlez, “Saudis Quietly Promote Strict Islam in Indonesia,” New York Times, July 5, 2003.