미국 역사학계의 북한사 인식 비판

This essay aims to analyze Charles Armstrong's research in a critical manner. He finds the main source of the strength and the resiliency for North Korea, which enabled polity to weather up the period of gloom and doom when collapse of North Korea anticipated since later 1980's, in the 'unknown' origination of its regime. Accordingly, the author examines the origination of the North Korean regime in order to predict to where the regime steers. Armstrong notices 'indigenization' as one of the main characters of the North Korean regime. It is true that North Korean government was incubated by the Soviet Stalinism; however, these 'indigenous' features facilitated and nurtured the regime to develop into where the regime now stands. He peruses the 'indigenization' of North Korea in the political and cultural scene of Korean society before 1945 when Korea regained her independence. He asserts that the North Korean regime has moved from the 'nee-Confucian monarchy' to 'Japanese colonialism,' and to 'Stalinism.' The author further states that the unique North Korean system engendered under these traditions let North Korea government survive through the hardship of wars, division, cold war, famine, and economic crisis. Although Armstrong's argument which is carefully articulated to explain the current situation where North Korea lies in has reasons to agree with, it is also quintessential to revise his deduction that the North Korean 'particularity' had been directly generated from the pre-modern Korean monarchy and the Japanese colonial rule. This essay comments on the Armstrong's main ideas with several key words - the 'Orientalism' and the 'Critique of Modernity.'