Until very recently most English-language general histories of Korea treated Japanese colonial rule or "Japanese occupation" as a rupture or distortion of the "natural development" of the Korean nation, creating a blank space in the national narrative when Korean history no longer belonged to the Koreans. The colonial period was written as "victims' history" -- a narrative of oppression, exploitation and suffering. The only Koreans given any agency were those who resisted Japanese authoritarianism, economic exploitation and cultural aggression.
This nationalist narrative, of course, drew heavily on a parallel historiography in Korean (and, oddly enough, in Japanese) that focused on similar themes with relentless predictability. But during the last decade or so, a new generation of American and Korean historians of Korea has tried to "rescue history from the nation."
This collection of essays provides an excellent guide to their work. The goal of the editors, and most of the authors, is to write a narrative of the colonial period that transcends "the binary logic of true nation/antination" by embracing "more inclusive, pluralist approaches."