Elizabeth J. Perry, Director, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University:
Well informed by social science theory, Hagen Koo has written an analytically astute, yet unusually sensitive and sympathetic, account of working-class formation in modern Korea. The result is an outstanding scholarly contribution, of interest to students (and concerned activists) of labor movements everywhere.
This is a well-written cogently argued alternative picture of Korean society from the perspective of workers who have won little attention thus far. Scholars, students of Korean society, and, indeed, students of comparative labor movements will learn much of Korea in the volume.
This book represents a fascinating history of the growth of class consciousness in one of the developing world's most militant labor movements as it overcame an inhospitable culture and despotic work conditions. Well informed by social science theory, Hagen Koo has written an analytically astute, yet unusually sensitive and sympathetic, account of working-class formation in modem Korea.
This book is highly recommended. It is the overdue, first serious, comprehensive, and well-researched study on South Korean working-class formation available to English readers. For those who are interested in Korean political economy, I believe that this book will provide a story that is overlooked by the developmental state literature. For those who are interested in labor studies and industrial sociology, this book shows how theories on class formation can be wonderfully combined to illustrate a particular case.
This book examines how Korean workers have interpreted their experiences, recognized their common interest, and achieved class consciousness and a collective identity in an environment undergoing rapid social and economic change. The author draws on broad statistical evidence and research data, which he analyzed over a period of ten years. He collected statistical data covering thirty years of industrialization, and also examined interview transcripts, first-generation workers' essays and diaries, union newspapers, and other materials. The resulting detailed analysis offers several rich insights.... Informed by the author's unique perspective and the variety of sources on which he ably draws, Korean Workers brings important theoretical and methodological insights to the field of Korean working-class studies.
Ruth Berins Collier, University of California, Berkeley:
Korean Workers presents a fascinating history of the growth of class consciousness in one of the developing world's most militant labor movements as it overcame an inhospitable culture and despotic work conditions. Hagen Koo's timely analysis also shows how, with the democratic transition, the political successes of the new KCTU have been accompanied by a decline of collective identity.
With Korean Workers, sociologist Hagen Koo turns to the growth of class consciousness among female and male workers from the 1970s to the 1990s, in the process providing a useful overview of an exceptional period in Korean history from the ground up.
The influence of cultural and political forces on the construction of a working-class identity in mid- and late-20th-century South Korea is investigated.... Although the future of the South Korean working class remains undetermined, it is concluded that previous generations of workers made substantial gains in improving working conditions and achieving social justice.
