Routledge Contemporary Korea Series

Series editor: Lam Peng Er, Principal Research Fellow, East Asian Institute, and Head, Korea Centre, National University of Singapore

Editorial Board:

Park Hahnkyu, Kyung Hee University, South Korea

Justin Hastings, University of Sydney, Australia

John Nilsson-Wright, Cambridge University, UK

The aim of this series is to publish solid and interesting social science research-level work on contemporary Korea, including work on international relations, political science, sociology, economics, gender studies and "current" history. Although South Korea has emerged as an upper middle power with the world’s tenth largest economy, making significant "soft power" contributions to global culture, and although the Korean peninsula is a potential hotspot in East Asia given the relentless nuclearization of North Korea and the fact that the peninsula is a key fulcrum of great power politics in East Asia where the US, China, Russia and Japan converge, there is much less written about Korea than about China and Japan, and about other important middle powers with large economies elsewhere in the world. Work in the series will include studies of what has made South Korea a comprehensive middle power, how it has risen to this status, the system of governance which made this possible, issues of war and peace in the Korean peninsula, and Korea’s impact on East Asia and the world.