Cutting History to Fit: A Study in Motivated Reasoning - Review of 'Korea Where the American Century Began'

“For my father (1928 - )” reads Michael Pembroke’s brief dedication, “who was there”. It is a raw, honest and principled motivation for writing a book… but not an intellectual one. ‘Korea: Where the American Century Began’, teases to do something impressive, but finds itself stuck in this first sentence; unable to kick free from the author’s antipathy toward what, and who, he blames for his father’s ‘being there’.