The Revolutionary People of Mount Baekdu: North Korea, Third World Liberation, and the Exportation of Mountain Insurgency
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
Linder Family Commons, Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E ST NW Room 602
AND Virtual via Zoom
NOTE: All non-GW affiliated attendees attending the event IN-PERSON must comply with GW’s COVID-19 policy in order to attend this event, including showing proof of vaccination and masking indoors. For frequently asked questions, please refer to GW’s guidance.
This talk examines the ways in which the North Korean regime exported its own theory of insurgency to the Third World during the Cold War era and used mountains as the primary source of inspiration and revolutionary struggle. Unlike the rural-oriented Maoists in China or the urban-focused Soviet Union, North Korea perceived its revolution to be mountain-based and derived the Kim family’s legitimacy from their historical closeness to Mount Baekdu, a sacred mountain to all Korean people.
This event is on the record and open to the public.
Speaker
Benjamin Young is an Assistant Professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. He is the author of Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World (Stanford University Press, 2021). He received his Ph.D. in history from The George Washington University in 2018. He has previously taught at the U.S Naval War College and Dakota State University. He has published peer-reviewed articles on North Korean history and politics in a number of scholarly journals and is a regular contributor to NKNews.org.
Moderator
Gregg A. Brazinsky is Professor of History and International Affairs, Deputy Director of the Institute for Korean Studies, and Interim Director for the Sigur Center at GW. He also serves as Director of the Asian Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs. His research seeks to understand the diverse and multifaceted interactions among East Asian states and between Asia and the United States. He is the author of Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) and Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). He served as Interim Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies during the Spring 2017 semester. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
