South Korea has strong traditions of class struggle and left-wing political organization. Unfortunately, this has generally not been reflected in the development of Korean radical theory, which has tended to be heavily derivative of work published in other countries and languages.

Lim Jie-hyun’s book Victimhood Nationalism is a welcome exception to this rule. Lim is a historian at Sogang University in Seoul, and his book is a genuinely original contribution from a country that has long relied on intellectual imports. It draws on case studies from Poland, Germany, Israel, Korea, and Japan to illustrate a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly familiar as its champions lay claim to a status of “hereditary victimhood.”