In the Republic of Korea the events of April 1960 are popularly known as hak saeng uigothe Righteous Student Uprising. During those turbulent days, the students of South Korea succeeded in doing what their country's politicians had failed to do: they brought down the entrenched, increasingly corrupt twelve-year-old government of President Syngman Rhee and sent the crusty old leader into exile. Today, even the official Handbook of Korea, published under the Park Chung Hee regime hails the uprising unreservedly. "The students," it declares, "had led the people into a democratic revolution."
Rhee became...