The circumstances of the Korean peninsula are always mystical to those outside of Korea, especially westerners. This book outlines the historical review of the Korean Peninsula from its division into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and South Korea to the present day. This should attract the interest of a variety of audiences. Although its core readership should be academicians, political elites and students of Korean studies, it will also inspire the interest of academics studying the history of Northeast Asia and Pacific areas. Because of the nature of the topic, this research may be of interest to people who love to explore the issues of conflicts in the Korean peninsula.

This book seeks to make three main contributions: First, it provides the first account of the historical review in the Korean peninsula since the Kingdom of Lee to Kim. Secondly, this book clarifies the unique characteristics of the governments in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and South Korea. Specifically, it combines the thoughts of local scholars and the thinking outside of Korea. Thirdly, it combines an understanding of localism with the aspect of developmental state theory and uses them to construct a theory of state transformation with Korean characteristics.