Bruce Cumings - Intellectual Life and Scholarship

Intellectual Life and Scholarship

Cumings joined the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars at Columbia after Mark Selden formed a chapter there, and published extensively in its journal, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. His research focus is on 20th century international history, United States and East Asia relations, East Asian political economy, modern Korean history, and American foreign relations. He is interested in the "multiplicity of ways that conceptions, metaphors and discourses are related to political economy and material forms of production", and to relations between "East and West".

In summarizing the culpability of various actors for the tragedy of the Korean War Cumings writes that:

He is presently completing a book entitled Industrial Behemoth: The Northeast Asian Political Economy in the 20th Century, which seeks to understand the industrialization of Japan, both Koreas, Taiwan, and parts of China, and the ways that scholars and political leaders have viewed that development.

Cumings writes in his book North Korea: The Hermit Kingdom, "I have no sympathy for the North, which is the author of most of its own troubles," but alludes to the "significant responsibility that all Americans share for the garrison state that emerged on the ashes of our truly terrible destruction of the North half a century ago."

In May 2007, Cumings was the first recipient of the Kim Dae Jung Academic Award for Outstanding Achievements and Scholarly Contributions to Democracy, Human Rights and Peace granted by South Korea. The award is named in honor of Nobel Peace Prize winner and former President of South Korea Kim Dae Jung. The award recognizes Cumings for his "outstanding scholarship, and engaged public activity regarding human rights and democratization during the decades of dictatorship in Korea, and after the dictatorship ended in 1987." Around the time when he received his award Cumings met President Kim at his home in Seoul. "They discussed the North Korean nuclear program, the Korean-American relationship, and what can be done to improve Korean attitudes toward the United States."

Professor Cumings has been a frequent contributor to the New Left Review. His articles include "The Last Hermit", "The Korean Crisis and the End of ‘Late’ Development", and "The Abortive Abertura: South Korea in the Light of Latin American Experience", and he also written several reviews. In 2003 Cumings alleged that the United States had "occupied" South Korea for 58 years and disputed the contention that North Korea had cheated on the October 1994 Agreed Framework.