Event Details

End: May 22, 2023
Contact: rwheatley@historians.org

This event is part of the Washington History Seminar series. It is cosponsored by the AHA and the Woodrow Wilson Center and features author Sheila Miyoshi Jager and commentator Sue Mi Terry. Register here. 

Like the Great Game struggles between Russia and Britain over India that existed for most of the 19th century, the “other” Great Game in East Asia over control of the Korean peninsula also gave rise to lasting rivalry and bloodshed among the regional powers at the turn of the twentieth century. Using her latest book, The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2023), Sheila Miyoshi Jager will illuminate some key aspects of this struggle to show how these earlier conflicts and rivalries set the course for the future of East Asia and the larger global order.

Sheila Miyoshi Jager is Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. Her books include, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, Ruptured Histories: War, Memory and the Post-Cold War in Asia (with Rana Mitter) and  Narratives of Nation Building: The Genealogy of Patriotism. She is author of many articles and essays in scholarly and popular publications, including the New York Times, Politico, and Boston Globe.

Sue Mi Terry is Director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center and adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining the Wilson Center, Dr. Terry served in a range of important policy roles related to both Kora and its surrounding region. Formerly a Senior Fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), she served as a Senior Analyst on Korean issues at the CIA (2001-2008), where she produced hundreds of intelligence assessments--including a record number of contributions to the President’s Daily Brief, the Intelligence Community’s most prestigious product. She received numerous awards for her leadership and outstanding mission support, including the CIA Foreign Language award in 2008.

Michael Robinson is a professor emeritus of Indiana University. His research is focused on modern Korea in the early to mid-20th century with a particular interest in the period of colonial rule between 1910-1945. Some of his publications include: Peace Corps Volunteers and the Making of the Korean Studies in the United States (University of Washington, 2020) which he co-wrote with Seung-kyung Kim; Twentieth Century Odyssey: A Short History (University of Hawaii Press, 2007); and Colonial Modernity in Korea (Cambridge: East Asia Council Publications, 1999) which he co-edited with Gi-Wook Shin.