Recent history wars in South Korea

This article aims to offer both an overview of the key issues and controversial policy decisions that defined history education in Korea for the past 10 years and a critical analysis of the actions taken by, and claims exchanged between, the advocates of New Right thinking and their opponents during this period. In doing so, it will point out the following three things. First, there has been a great deal of partisan political interference, more on the part of the right than of the left. Second, there was a strong presence of a nationalist element in the collective efforts made by the left to counter the conservative government’s attempts to take firm control of what and how history is taught in schools. Third, both the right and the left played fast and loose with the idea of diversity in order to consolidate their academic and political positions. This was, it will be argued, as much a manifestation of fragmented reflections on relevant epistemological issues as the result of political expediency.