About WHKMLA



The History of WHKMLA :

KMLA stands for Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, an elite boarding high school located in countryside South Korea, altitude 600 m. Although practically all students and the vast majority of the teachers are Korean nationals, instructions are held in English. The school was founded in 1996, our international track in 1998. The total student population is about 200, the faculty about 50. The students in our international track plan to apply, directly after graduating, for prestigious universities in the USA, the United Kingdom etc.

My name is Alexander Ganse, German national, born in 1957. I have studied history at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. I live in Korea since 1989 and teach at KMLA since 1997. I began preparing students for SAT II World History and AP European History in 1999. I speak German, English, Dutch, broken Swedish and French. I can read the Germanic and Romance languages.
As our school had no library at that time, and as I was dissatisfied with what the Internet had to offer at that time, in April 1999 I began setting up this website, first hosted by Disney's GO HOMEPAGES, later by STADTBILDSTELLE BREMERHAVEN. In the meantime, WHKMLA underwent several major restructurings and continues to be restructured. During the last two years I have focussed on the Modern Europe section. Ancient History, the Middle Ages, Non-European history need to be worked over.
In 2002 I have established a separate HISTORICAL ATLAS section.
I am in the process to establish a country by country document link collection on partner site psm-data (www.zum.de/psm/, click for country index)
Separate sections for BIOGRAPHIES and HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES are under construction, as are lists of wars by country.
The scope of WHKMLA is very wide; I am well aware that work on the site will never be finished. As a consequence of constant restructuring, unfortunately, a considerable number of internal links (especially in the by period section) are not working; this section needs to be updated. Also, a considerable number of external links are not working, as websites have been taken off the web or relocated.
The website WHKMLA (which is extensive and growing) is presently hosed by the ZENTRALE FÜR UNTERRICHTSMEDIEN(Germany), to which I am indebted.

As webmaster of WHKMLA, I am not responsible for the contents of other websites linked to WHKMLA, which are usually indicated as EXTERNAL, usually listed in the boxes at the bottom of the respective page.

The Concept of WHKMLA :

WHKMLA is designed to provide persons interested in history with easy access to encyclopaedic information. The term "encyclopaedic", however, needs to be defined. Encyclopaedias in printed form have to limit their coverage due to the pressure of market forces; this means few maps, geographical-historical articles such as the country entries in the Britannica Macropaedia limited to states presently existing, or to groups of states presently existing. Such articles often emphasize political history (and often may read as an iteration of political events).
WHKMLA attemps to cover countries, as well as historical regions, provide maps, cover political, economic and social history (also some cultural history, but this element is not central to WHKMLA).
For example, traditional encyclopedias treat China as one unit. However, China accounts for roughly one fifth of world population; many Chinese provinces exceed the country where I teach, the Republic of Korea, both in area and population. WHKMLA tries to offer basic information to the individual provinces/states of China, Brazil, India etc.
The history of major countries (France, Germany, Russia etc.) is presented by period, subdivided into accounts of foreign and domestic policy, the economy and cultural history.




This page is part of World History at KMLA
Last revised on December 19th 2005








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