Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop
Ramon Pacheco Pardo
Hurst: 2022
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South Korea has the most extraordinary of histories’, opens Ramon Pacheco Pardo’s Shrimp to Whale, ‘but few outside South Korea actually know the history of the country’. Pardo’s mission, as evident from this preface, is corrective in nature, hoping to nuance the history of a nation known to the world in shorthand as the home of K-pop or Samsung, or the pitiful neighbour of North Korea.
Through a brisk, 200-page narrative, Pardo’s history of modern South Korea moves fluidly from topics like changing family structures, the movie industry and linguistic developments, but the majority of these elements are packaged into a lens of economic development, one charting South Korea’s rapid growth. The book as a whole takes the tone of a love letter packaged as historiography—from its title alone, the optimism and celebration of South Korea’s successes can be evinced, whereas its social and economic failings are given much less space.
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- Tags: Issue 28, Kion You, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, South Korea