Suh Jungkyu is a student passionate about history, who loves to engage in debates on politics and history.
He tends to choose challenging topics, prefers the field of diplomatic history.
For his research project he chose to compare the events in Chile (coup d'etat 1973) and South Korea
(assassination of President Park 1979, coup d'etat 1980) in the context of international diplomacy. He spend
considerable effort on obtaining literature; as both events are rather recent, much documentation in archives
is not yet accessible to the public, and hence not yet analyzed by historians in secondary sources. Jungkyu
contacted scholars who have published in the field in order to find information and get advice.
Another phenomenon he encountered was that the interpretations he found in books covered a considerable
range, again at least partially due to the fact that much documentation is not yet accessible. Jungkyu and I often
discussed the matter, him telling me that he found another angle at which one of the two cases could be
seen.
Jungkyu's research paper is compatible to a third year college presentation; it would provide the foundation for
an academic discussion. In order to reach a higher level, Jungkyu would have to include Spanish language
sources (for Chile) and access primary sources; both can not be done at high school level. During his
research, Jungkyu has shown the maturity, curiosity, an extraordinary stamina and passion for history which qualifies
him to study the subject at college.
November 4th 2006
Alexander Ganse
