#1 bestseller and library loaner for three consecutive years
Revised and expanded edition of "The World's Shortest History of Korea" published!
“The only book I ever read in full, despite my limited knowledge of history.”
“This is the most interesting Korean history book I’ve ever read!” _From a reader review

《The World's Shortest History of Korea》 introduces the most important moments in Korean history from ancient times to modern times, helping you grasp the flow of history in a single volume.
In particular, historian Kim Jae-won, who has become a hot topic through his appearances on various channels such as MBC's "Guys Who Cross the Line Season 5" and YouTube's "SBS DALI" "Over-immersive Joseon History," explains history as if it were a novel, constantly connecting the past and present.
Listening to his stories of Korean history, which are easy but not light, interesting but unforgettable, you realize that history is not an academic discipline confined to textbooks, but a story that connects with you today.

Now is the time to read thousands of years of Korean history in one volume.
Sometimes you may feel out of breath, and other times you may find yourself so absorbed that you lose track of time.
But if we carefully understand the stories from long ago in one context, at some point when we reach the last chapter, we will meet the present us.

Although it is briefly mentioned in textbooks and often appears as a test question, the only things we remember about Buyeo are that there was a noble class that named livestock after them and that they held a sacrificial rite called 'Yeonggo'.
And if you look a little deeper, you will find that Jumong, the founder of Goguryeo, and Onjo, the founder of Baekje, came from Buyeo.
This fact is too significant to just pass over.
Because Buyeo still existed when Goguryeo and Baekje were created.

If you think about it, isn't it a bit odd? The people of a perfectly healthy country would go so far south, even further south, to establish a new nation, and even proudly proclaim, "I'm from Buyeo."
Regardless of whether they truly came from Buyeo, what does it mean that the Goguryeo and Baekje people of the time used "coming from Buyeo" as a symbol of power? And why did the two countries that later came to dominate the Korean Peninsula proclaim each other, "My roots are in Buyeo"?
---From "The Time When Being from 'Buyeo' Was a Symbol of Power"

To Joseon's Neo-Confucian scholars, Empress Dowager Cheonchu was a strange figure.
He was a strange being born from a strong (close) incestuous marriage, and continued to have children through incest.
Moreover, as the Empress Dowager, she had children through an affair and even tried to place a Kim family member, not a Wang family member, on the throne.
How dare you talk about women.
(…) We must consider how Empress Dowager Cheonchu’s actions would have been perceived from the perspective of Goryeo, not from the perspective of the Joseon Dynasty’s Neo-Confucian scholars who evaluated her.

Empress Dowager Cheonchu's incestuous marriage was a tradition of the Goryeo royal family that was not at all strange.
The same goes for the act of trying to make a Kim, not a Wang, king.
In Goryeo, matrilineality was just as important as patrilineality.
Crucially, her communication wasn't going to be a big problem either.
In Goryeo, it was not a big deal for a young woman who had lost her husband to fall in love with another man.
Although they could have been a bit stricter because they were royalty, considering Empress Dowager Cheonchu's influence, the love affair itself could not have been a flaw.

Does Empress Dowager Cheonchu still appear as a sentimental woman blinded by love, or as a politician determined to do politics properly? It's not too late for us to decide.
---From "From a Slutty Woman to an Outstanding Heroine"

The country was in shambles after the war between Goryeo and Mongolia.
Many people died, and naturally the population decreased.
(…) Goryeo’s finances, unable to collect taxes, gradually dried up.
They tried to settle the nomads and carry out reclamation projects to raise money somehow, but it was not enough.
Goryeo's system had already collapsed.

As it became difficult to cultivate farmland directly, Goryeo began to distribute wasteland to the powerful and encourage cultivation.
The powerful, who had an abundance of money and people, jumped into the land reclamation business without hesitation.
(…) From the king’s close associates to the royal family and the so-called Buwon faction, everyone was obsessed with competing to take over the country.
It was precisely this reality of Goryeo that people began to murmur, saying, “There is no place to stick an awl.”


(…) Of course, there were some politicians who tried to save the country and its people.
They are the new generation of scholars.
Among them, there were those who thought, 'While we're at it, let's change the name of the country and the king too!', while there were others who thought, 'Isn't it a bit much to change the king too?'
But at least they did not deny that Goryeo's biggest problem was real estate (land).
---From "It All Started with Real Estate"

The spring of 1980 in Seoul and the lonely struggle in Gwangju were isolated in their regions, but the June Struggle of 1987 could have led to nationwide protests.
It was significant that not only opposition politicians, university students, and pro-democracy activists outside the establishment, but also the middle class, which had grown rapidly during the boom of the three lows, participated.
This is because it means that the common value of democracy is shared among the people of the Republic of Korea beyond the issue of making a living.

In October 1987, the current constitution, the so-called Constitution of the Sixth Republic, was promulgated, which included a direct presidential election system and strengthened presidential control and basic rights for the people.
The democracy we now take for granted is the fruit of a hard-won, bloody struggle.
And even now, Korean spring days are still struggling to overcome the occasional chill of spring cold that brings warmth.
Because there is no such thing as a free lunch.
---From "There is no such thing as free democracy in the world"

Sampoong Department Store suffered its worst disaster at 5:55 PM on June 29, 1995, when the entire building A collapsed.
It was a disaster that was predicted because everything from design to construction, maintenance, and management was flawed.
Who would have imagined that the symbol of Gangnam would crumble?

(…) This collapse was a foreshadowing of the IMF crisis that would occur two years later.
No one could have predicted that the wealth that South Korea had accumulated would lead to bankruptcy.
The sudden and compressed growth was a little unsettling, but that was it.
Moreover, 1997, when the IMF crisis broke out, was called the golden age of Korean capitalist history.

(…) For these Koreans, the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store was an exceptional disaster caused by greedy business owners trying to save money.
It had to be that way.
But the reality was not like that.
Just as the Sampoong Department Store was built, Korea's economic growth process was festering from within. As evidenced by the 648 billion won in unpaid wages reported to the Ministry of Labor just before the IMF crisis, companies were on the verge of bankruptcy, but banks appeared to be forcibly preventing them.
Among the numerous companies facing bankruptcy, a significant number were construction companies. It's no coincidence that the Hanbo Group, which built the Eunma Apartments in Gangnam, was the trigger for the IMF crisis.

---From "The Day the Symbol of Korean Economic Growth Collapsed"