Jiyul Kim

  • Visiting Instructor of History

Areas of Study

Education

  • BA, anthropology and biology, University of Pennsylvania, 1981
  • MA, Asian studies, Harvard University, 1991
  • ABD, history and east Asian languages, Harvard University, 2004

Biography

Jiyul Kim is a historian of East Asia, Cold War, U.S. foreign policy, and, more broadly, war in human civilization. He has been teaching in the history department since 2012. Prior to Oberlin College, he served for nearly 30 years in the U.S. Army (1981-2009) with assignments in the United States, Germany, Korea, and Japan.

His final years in the army was as professor of national security and director of Asian studies at the U.S. Army War College (Carlisle, PA), where he developed a curriculum on regional studies based on history and culture.

He has published broadly on history, culture, archaeology, and the military. He brings his real world and academic experiences to his teaching.

His first course, HIST 393 History and the Formulation of U.S. National Security Policy and Strategy (2012-2014), examined the use of history in the formulation of U.S. national security policy and strategy using case studies of historical and contemporary security issues to examine how historical knowledge can better inform U.S. foreign and military policy and strategy.

His next courses, HIST 392 Theory and History of War (2015) and HIST 399 War and Civilization, examined the role and place in history of war from the evolutionary origin of conflict some 10,000 years ago through the impact of wars on the course of human civilization to the present.

His most recent course, HIST 343 Research Seminar: War, Military and the American Nation, explored the impact of wars and the military in how the United States developed as a nation.

  • The Korean War: A New History, coauthor with Sheila Miyoshi Jager (East Asian Studies). Forthcoming Cambridge University Press, 2022.
  • “North Korea in the Vietnam War.,” In Stephen Sherman, ed. Year of the Cock, 1969. RADIX Press, 2017.
  • Chapter 6, “Strategic Culture of the Republic of Korea.” In Jeffrey Lantis, ed. Strategic Cultures and Security Policies in the Asia-Pacific. Routledge, 2015.
  • “Chapter 21: United Nations Command and Korean Augmentation.” In Donald Boose and James Matray, eds. Ashgate Research Companion to the Korean War. Ashgate Publishing, 2014.
  • “The Significance of the Korean War in World History.” The 61st Anniversary of the Korean War International Academic Seminar.” Taegu, Republic of Korea: Chungsŏngdae yŏnguso, 2011 (in Korean and English).
  • Cultural Dimensions of Strategy & Policy. Letort Paper, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2009.

Notes

Jiyul Kim Cited in Washington Post Article

September 13, 2022

Visiting Instructor of history Jiyul Kim was cited in a Washington Post article on the reunion of the "Chosin Few" veterans of the Korean War. Kim is writing a new history of the Korean War for Cambridge University Press in collaboration with East Asian Studies Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager.

Jiyul Kim and Sheila Miyoshi Jager Publish on the Korean War

June 19, 2020

Visiting Instructor of History Jiyul Kim and Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager recently published "The Lasting Legacies of Korean War Special Operations" in the special Summer 2020 issue of the Wilson Quarterly marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War and a series of posts on "New and Old Sources on Select Korean War Topics & Issues" on The Wilson Center History & Public Policy Program's Sources & Methods site.

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