Youth for nation : culture and protest in Cold War South Korea / Charles R. Kim.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-254) and index.

Narrating the postwar crisis -- Wholesome modernization -- The student vanguard -- Permissible criticism -- 4.19 as authorized protest -- Miracles every day?

"This in-depth exploration of culture, media, and protest follows South Korea's transition from the Korean War to the political struggles and socioeconomic transformations of the Park Chung Hee era. Although the post-Korean War years are commonly remembered as a time of crisis and disarray, Charles Kim contends that they also created a formative and productive juncture in which South Koreans reworked pre-1945 constructions of national identity to meet the political and cultural needs of postcolonial nation-building. He explores how state ideologues and mainstream intellectuals expanded their efforts by elevating the nation's youth as the core protagonist of a newly independent Korea. By designating students and young men and women as the hope and exemplars of the new nation-state, the discursive stage was set for the remarkable outburst of the April Revolution in 1960"--Publisher's website