I found a copy of Pearl Buck's "My Several Worlds", and found it interesting. She is the only Nobel prizewinner I have ever met. She came to West Virginia Wesleyan College to promote a Center for her archives in WV, delivered a couple of great speeches and met with faculty and students for four days, eating in the dining hall and visiting with everyone. A wonderful person, really, and an expert on China and US foreign affairs.
I read her "The Living Reed" which is about Korea from the 1880's through the 1940's, and was also quite good, though not as good as "The Good Earth".
I ran across this book on Amazon. It is a graphic novel style history of Korea, which gets into the similarities and differences between the Chinese, the Koreans and the Japanese. The writer is a South Korean academic. a professor of graphic design at a Korean women's university, and definitely pro-Democracy. He speaks about Koreans being extremists and the advantages and disadvantages of this, as well as Korea's rapid development since the 1950's War, and he gets into the specifics about unification of the two Koreas. Both sides have a plan, and they don't agree. Rhie does not seem to be promoting any specific agenda other than informing the public (the Korean public in particular) about Korea and the world.
If you are interested in Korea, I highly recommend this book. Rhie has written a number of books on history, but this seems to be the only one that has been translated to English. It is more comprehensive than Guy Delisle's Pyongyang, and just as entertaining. I also like Delisle.
http://www.hanbooks.com/koruninsearo.html
