The Promised Republic

Developmental Society and the Making of Modern Seoul, 19611979
The Promised Republic offers a bold new history of South Koreas rapid national development. Drawing on a range of official sources and personal accounts, Russell Burge links the struggles of rural-to-urban migrants living in Seouls shantytowns during the 1960s and 1970s and the conflicts over urban access and inequality that endure today.
In The Promised Republic, Russell Burge offers a bold new history of South Koreas rapid development. By focusing on the experience of rural-to-urban migrants who built and lived in Seouls shantytowns, Burge historicizes national development as a site of struggle with the urban poor at its center. What would a society of postcolonial abundance look like? Who was this society built for, and how would access to the city that formed its economic center be claimed and defended? These were the questions at stake in the urban struggle