Book : The Birth Of Korean Cool How One Nation Is Conquering

-Titulo Original : The Birth Of Korean Cool How One Nation Is Conquering The World Through Pop Culture

-Fabricante :

Picador

-Descripcion Original:

About the Author EUNY HONG is a journalist and author with international experience in web, print, and television news. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, International Herald Tribune, New Republic, Boston Globe, and The Forward. She is the author of one previous book, the novel Kept: A Comedy of Sex and Manners. She is fluent in English, French, German, and Korean. A FRESH, FUNNY, UP-CLOSE LOOK AT HOW SOUTH KOREA REMADE ITSELF AS THE WORLDS POP CULTURE POWERHOUSE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURYBy now, everyone in the world knows the song Gangnam Style and Psy, an instantly recognizable star. But the songs international popularity is no passing fad. Gangnam Style is only one tool in South Koreas extraordinarily elaborate and effective strategy to become a major world superpower by first becoming the worlds number one pop culture exporter.As a child, Euny Hong moved from America to the Gangnam neighbourhood in Seoul. She was a witness to the most accelerated part of South Koreas economic development, during which time it leapfrogged from third-world military dictatorship to first-world liberal democracy on the cutting edge of global technology.Euny Hong recounts how South Korea vaulted itself into the twenty-first century, becoming a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture. Featuring lively, in-depth reporting and numerous interviews with Koreans working in all areas of government and society, The Birth of Korean Cool reveals how a really uncool country became cool, and how a nation that once banned miniskirts, long hair on men, and rock ‘n roll could come to mass produce boy bands, soap operas, and the worlds most important smart phone. Review An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2014: I always love a good immigrant story: a tale of a young person, transplanted from the “old country” and learning the ropes (and usually teaching them to her parents) in the new. But journalist Euny Hong’s The Birth of Korean Cool is that familiar tale’s obverse: at age 12, the Chicago-born American moved with her parents back to the South Korea of their birth. And like the displaced Hong herself, the Korea of 1985 grew up fast: it became, in short order, the nation of Samsung, of newly wealthy executives, and now, Hong contends, it has become the crown prince of Asian pop culture. A kind of memoir of a culture as well as of an individual life, Hong’s first nonfiction book (she previously wrote the novel Kept: A Comedy of Sex and Manners) mixes personal memoir with interviews and research to produce a rollicking, delightful, wise-guy story of how both she and her ancestral home became the cultural icons they are today. --Sara Nelson Review “Incisive and humorous… An excellent case study of calculated entrepreneurial moxie.” The New York Times Book Review“Full of facts and entertaining to boot, its definitely a gem.” EntertainmentWeekly “An insightful book…[Hongs] brief chapter on Koreas han against Japan is both the best and most concise explanation Ive read of the two countries complicated and ancient feud.” Bloomberg Businessweek“The rare book thats hilariously funny and also makes you smarter about world economies.” Vulture“An incisive, colorfully written account of South Koreas cultural ascent.” Grantland“Fabulously snarky…Hong is perfectly positioned to understand this complex Korean psyche while retaining enough distance (and cynicism) to evaluate it.” Helen Brown, The Telegraph (UK)“Highly entertaining.” The Guardian (UK)“Hongs breezy book is a good place to begin to understand this rising nation.” The Times (London)“A witty chronicle of how pop culture shaped South Koreas meteoric rise from a war-torn nation to a technological giant.” The Forward“Euny Hong playfully and insightfully dissects her native culture… Theres much more to it than just ‘Gangnam Style.”