Saul T. Bacon
Time will tell whether any of this is worthy of optimism, but late last year Kim Jong-un assumed the highest office in North Korea after the passing of his father, Kim Jong-il, and late this year South Korea elected its first woman president, Park Geun-hye. Both seem to be slightly better than their predecessors, not that that's saying much. Both countries have been plagued by awful governments since their formation in the 1940s.
Both Kim and Park are the spawn of dictators, but sometimes people born into power are not as ruthless with it as the people who seize it and get drunk on it. Park is described as a free-market conservative, although her positions have softened somewhat in the last few years--softened to the point that she wants to improve welfare for South Koreans. (Again, time will tell whether or not she's just giving lip service to populist positions for her own political objectives.)
I hope both can take meaningful steps toward reunification, even if it's just some sort of federation in which both states agree to disagree on a lot (but otherwise normalize relations).
I also hope Bruce Cumings writes another book (better yet, more) about Korea. His analysis is the best of any Westerner I've come across (although there are a few others I appreciate as well for their sensitivity and understanding of Korea's history and politics).
Anyway, I sat down to recap my year in reading rather than the year in Korean politics. The 20 books I listed a while ago make a total of 100 for the year (a goal I wasn't sure I'd meet, since I've devoted a bit more time to other things, mainly volunteering, this year). Those 100 books are listed alphabetically below.
1. Anti-Capitalism by Ezequiel Adamovsky
2. Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror by Tariq Ali
3. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary
4. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan by Tamim Ansary
5. A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense: Find Your Inner Chomsky by Normand Baillargeon
6. Border Wars by Tom Barry
7. To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa by Nnimmo Bassey
8. Publicity for Nonprofits: Generating Media Exposure That Leads to Awareness, Growth, and Contributions by Sandra Beckwith
9. Islam Explained by Tahar Ben Jelloun
10. The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present by Mary Frances Berry
11. State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream by Jeff Biggers
12. Blaming Islam by John R. Bowen
13. Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate by Rick Bowers
14. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
15. Is That a Word? From AA to ZZZ, the Weird and Wonderful Language of SCRABBLE by David Bukszpan
16. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
17. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
18. Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans by Dale Carpenter
19. The Dwarf by Cho Se-hui
20. The Essential Chomsky by Noam Chomsky
21. Language and Politics by Noam Chomsky
22. Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance by Noam Chomsky
23. Occupy by Noam Chomsky
24. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
25. Why Not Socialism? by G. A. Cohen
26. Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie
27. Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power by Bruce Cumings
28. A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America by Ernest Drucker
29. 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars by Kurt Eichenwald
30. From a Crooked Rib by Nuruddin Farah
31. Crusade 2.0: The West's Resurgent War on Islam by John Feffer
32. Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End by Norman G. Finkelstein
33. What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage by Norman G. Finkelstein
34. Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank
35. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama by Diane C. Fujino
36. How to Control the Military by John Kenneth Galbraith
37. First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia by David N. Gibbs
38. The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis by David N. Gibbs
39. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America by Martin Gilens
40. Full-Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century by Stan Goff
41. The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
42. The Trouble Is the Banks: Letters to Wall Street by Mark Greif, Dayna Tortorici, Kathleen French, Emma Janaskie, and Nick Werle (eds.)
43. Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed--and Why It Still Matters by Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles
44. my name on his tongue: poems by Laila Halaby
45. Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land by Amira Hass
46. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
47. The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader by Edward S. Herman
48. Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous! by Stéphane Hessel
49. Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law and Plotted to Avoid Prosecution--and What We Can Do About It by Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper
50. Resistance Against Empire by Derrick Jensen
51. Right-Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat Is Being Ignored by Daryl Johnson
52. Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions by Diana Johnstone
53. Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror by Matt Kennard
54. The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop and the Gods of New York by Michael Muhammad Knight
55. William S. Burroughs vs. the Qur'an by Michael Muhammad Knight
56. Why I Am a Five Percenter by Michael Muhammad Knight
57. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
58. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire by Deepa Kumar
59. Rich People Things: Real-Life Secrets of the Predator Class by Chris Lehman
60. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
61. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster
62. Chains of Babylon: The Rise of Asian America by Daryl J. Maeda
63. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics by Carol Mason
64. Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn: A Hitchhiker's Adventures in the New Iran by Jamie Maslin
65. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Robert W. McChesney
66. Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media by Robert W. McChesney and Jon Nichols
67. Billionaires' Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality by linda_mcquaig and Neil Brooks
68. The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science--and Reality by Chris Mooney
69. Limit of Vision by Linda Nagata
70. A People's Guide to the Federal Budget by the National Priorities Project
71. The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition by Katherine S. Newman
72. Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps by greg_palast
73. Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti
74. Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress by Becky Pettit
75. Arab Spring, Libyan Winter by Vijay Prashad
76. Fat Cats and Running Dogs: The Enron Stage of Capitalism by Vijay Prashad
77. Addicted to Incarceration: Corrections Policy and the Politics of Misinformation in the United States by Travis C. Pratt
78. Just Stories: How the Law Embodies Racism and Bias by Thomas Ross
79. Microradio & Democracy: (Low) Power to the People by Greg Ruggiero
80. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
81. Arizona Firestorm: Global Immigration Realities, National Media, and Provincial Politics by Otto Santa Ana and Celeste González de Bustamante (eds.)
82. A Sustainable Economy for the 21st Century by Juliet Schor
83. The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West
84. Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples by Rodger Streitmatter
85. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart
86. The Collapse of American Criminal Justice by William J. Stuntz
87. 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World by John Tirman
88. Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer
89. Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove's Secret Kingdom of Power by Craig Unger
90. This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement by Sarah Van Gelder and the Staff of Yes! Magazine (eds.)
91. I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics by Gore Vidal
92. Strategy of Deception by Paul Virilio
93. Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom by Cornel West
94. Empire as a Way of Life by William Appleman Williams
95. Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority by tim_wise
96. Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism by Richard Wolff and David Barsamian
97. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon S. Wolin
98. Malcolm X on Afro-American History by Malcolm X
99. The Historic Unfulfilled Promise by Howard Zinn
100. Howard Zinn on Democratic Education by Howard Zinn
Both Kim and Park are the spawn of dictators, but sometimes people born into power are not as ruthless with it as the people who seize it and get drunk on it. Park is described as a free-market conservative, although her positions have softened somewhat in the last few years--softened to the point that she wants to improve welfare for South Koreans. (Again, time will tell whether or not she's just giving lip service to populist positions for her own political objectives.)
I hope both can take meaningful steps toward reunification, even if it's just some sort of federation in which both states agree to disagree on a lot (but otherwise normalize relations).
I also hope Bruce Cumings writes another book (better yet, more) about Korea. His analysis is the best of any Westerner I've come across (although there are a few others I appreciate as well for their sensitivity and understanding of Korea's history and politics).
Anyway, I sat down to recap my year in reading rather than the year in Korean politics. The 20 books I listed a while ago make a total of 100 for the year (a goal I wasn't sure I'd meet, since I've devoted a bit more time to other things, mainly volunteering, this year). Those 100 books are listed alphabetically below.
1. Anti-Capitalism by Ezequiel Adamovsky
2. Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror by Tariq Ali
3. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary
4. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan by Tamim Ansary
5. A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense: Find Your Inner Chomsky by Normand Baillargeon
6. Border Wars by Tom Barry
7. To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa by Nnimmo Bassey
8. Publicity for Nonprofits: Generating Media Exposure That Leads to Awareness, Growth, and Contributions by Sandra Beckwith
9. Islam Explained by Tahar Ben Jelloun
10. The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present by Mary Frances Berry
11. State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream by Jeff Biggers
12. Blaming Islam by John R. Bowen
13. Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate by Rick Bowers
14. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
15. Is That a Word? From AA to ZZZ, the Weird and Wonderful Language of SCRABBLE by David Bukszpan
16. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
17. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
18. Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans by Dale Carpenter
19. The Dwarf by Cho Se-hui
20. The Essential Chomsky by Noam Chomsky
21. Language and Politics by Noam Chomsky
22. Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance by Noam Chomsky
23. Occupy by Noam Chomsky
24. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
25. Why Not Socialism? by G. A. Cohen
26. Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie
27. Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power by Bruce Cumings
28. A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America by Ernest Drucker
29. 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars by Kurt Eichenwald
30. From a Crooked Rib by Nuruddin Farah
31. Crusade 2.0: The West's Resurgent War on Islam by John Feffer
32. Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End by Norman G. Finkelstein
33. What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage by Norman G. Finkelstein
34. Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank
35. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama by Diane C. Fujino
36. How to Control the Military by John Kenneth Galbraith
37. First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia by David N. Gibbs
38. The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis by David N. Gibbs
39. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America by Martin Gilens
40. Full-Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century by Stan Goff
41. The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
42. The Trouble Is the Banks: Letters to Wall Street by Mark Greif, Dayna Tortorici, Kathleen French, Emma Janaskie, and Nick Werle (eds.)
43. Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed--and Why It Still Matters by Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles
44. my name on his tongue: poems by Laila Halaby
45. Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land by Amira Hass
46. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
47. The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader by Edward S. Herman
48. Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous! by Stéphane Hessel
49. Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law and Plotted to Avoid Prosecution--and What We Can Do About It by Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper
50. Resistance Against Empire by Derrick Jensen
51. Right-Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat Is Being Ignored by Daryl Johnson
52. Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions by Diana Johnstone
53. Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror by Matt Kennard
54. The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop and the Gods of New York by Michael Muhammad Knight
55. William S. Burroughs vs. the Qur'an by Michael Muhammad Knight
56. Why I Am a Five Percenter by Michael Muhammad Knight
57. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
58. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire by Deepa Kumar
59. Rich People Things: Real-Life Secrets of the Predator Class by Chris Lehman
60. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
61. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster
62. Chains of Babylon: The Rise of Asian America by Daryl J. Maeda
63. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics by Carol Mason
64. Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn: A Hitchhiker's Adventures in the New Iran by Jamie Maslin
65. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Robert W. McChesney
66. Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media by Robert W. McChesney and Jon Nichols
67. Billionaires' Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality by linda_mcquaig and Neil Brooks
68. The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science--and Reality by Chris Mooney
69. Limit of Vision by Linda Nagata
70. A People's Guide to the Federal Budget by the National Priorities Project
71. The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition by Katherine S. Newman
72. Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps by greg_palast
73. Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti
74. Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress by Becky Pettit
75. Arab Spring, Libyan Winter by Vijay Prashad
76. Fat Cats and Running Dogs: The Enron Stage of Capitalism by Vijay Prashad
77. Addicted to Incarceration: Corrections Policy and the Politics of Misinformation in the United States by Travis C. Pratt
78. Just Stories: How the Law Embodies Racism and Bias by Thomas Ross
79. Microradio & Democracy: (Low) Power to the People by Greg Ruggiero
80. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
81. Arizona Firestorm: Global Immigration Realities, National Media, and Provincial Politics by Otto Santa Ana and Celeste González de Bustamante (eds.)
82. A Sustainable Economy for the 21st Century by Juliet Schor
83. The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West
84. Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples by Rodger Streitmatter
85. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart
86. The Collapse of American Criminal Justice by William J. Stuntz
87. 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World by John Tirman
88. Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer
89. Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove's Secret Kingdom of Power by Craig Unger
90. This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement by Sarah Van Gelder and the Staff of Yes! Magazine (eds.)
91. I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics by Gore Vidal
92. Strategy of Deception by Paul Virilio
93. Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom by Cornel West
94. Empire as a Way of Life by William Appleman Williams
95. Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority by tim_wise
96. Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism by Richard Wolff and David Barsamian
97. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon S. Wolin
98. Malcolm X on Afro-American History by Malcolm X
99. The Historic Unfulfilled Promise by Howard Zinn
100. Howard Zinn on Democratic Education by Howard Zinn