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The circumstances of the Korean peninsula are always mystical outside of Korea, especially to westerners. This book outlines the historical review of the Korean peninsula from its dividing into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and South Korea to present day. This should attract the interest of a variety of audiences. Although its core readership should be academicians, political elites, and students of Korean studies, it also inspires the interest of academics studying the history of Northeast Asia and Pacific areas. This book seeks to make three main contributions: first, it provides the first account of historical review in the Korean peninsula since the Kingdom of Lee to Kim. Secondly, this book clarifies the unique characteristics of the governments in Democratic People's Republic of Korea and South Korea, and combines the thoughts of local scholars and thinking outside of Korea. Thirdly, it combines an understanding of localism, with the aspect of developmental state theory, and uses them to construct a theory of state transformation with Korean characteristics.