Lecture on Korea

Historian Bruce Cumings will give a talk, "Decoupled from History: North Korea in the 'Axis of Evil,'" at 4 p.m., Thursday, April 26, in Ferris Lounge, Seymour Union, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. The talk is free and open to the public.

Cumings, who teaches at the University of Chicago, has written extensively about modern Korean history, including the two-volume work "The Origins of the Korean War." In a 2003 article in the London Review of Books, Cumings wrote that many top American foreign policy officials "don't know what they're talking about," when it comes to North Korea. Cumings argued that American leaders often ignore expert analysis of intelligence about political and military events, such as the development of nuclear weapons, in North Korea.

Cumings also studies "East-West" international relations, a topic covered in his forthcoming book, "Parallax Visions: American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century." He examines Asian economies in another forthcoming book, "Industrial Behemoth: The Northeast Asian Political Economy in the 20th Century."

Cumings is the Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He earned a doctorate at Columbia University.

The lecture is sponsored by the Knox College Center for Global Studies.