South Korea is the only country to have graduated from a developing to a developed country by the most common definitions, Jaymin Lee claims at the outset of his economic history of the east Asian nation, concentrating on the years since World War Two. Over this period it has confounded expectations by avoiding the so-called ‘middle income trap’ which has stymied so many of its erstwhile peers, and become a liberal democracy to boot, one that boasts globally significant companies such as Samsung and Hyundai.

How has this happened? As it turns out, not without some substantial difficulties and setbacks. South Korea’s period of high economic growth, from the 1960s until the 1990s, was accompanied by long periods of political authoritarianism. It has suffered bouts of political instability, notably when longtime strongman leader Park Chung Hee was assassinated in 1979 followed by the brutal suppression of the Gwangju student uprising in 1980. And of course it has gone through major economic ruptures, notably the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and its global sequel in 2008.

In his account Professor Lee carefully explains how policy choices made in Seoul both shaped South Korea’s development and stored up problems and imbalances it has had to reckon with ever since. Thus, the focus from the 1960s onwards on export-driven growth helps foster the development of the chaebol, the powerful conglomerates maintained by complex webs of cross shareholdings; these in turn encourage corruption and inefficiency, and a high level of vulnerability once fears about non-performing loans take hold. The financial sector liberalization and capital market opening that followed South Korea’s democratization is another apparent positive that turns out to have downsides, as the banking system becomes more short-termist in its outlook and the system more vulnerable to capital flight — both major factors in the ‘97 crisis.

He highlights, too, successful policies such as the government’s strong emphasis on education — albeit with concerns about more recent developments in South Korea’s university system — and the enlightened approach to the arts which has allowed Korean culture to flourish globally. Some aspects of modern South Korea receive less attention, however, such as the stark political divide between males and females: More focus on the economic aspects of this and other social phenomena would have been good to read. Lee is better on the country’s widening wealth divide that provides such a powerful leitmotif to the Oscar-winning film Parasite.

Lee is less reticent, too, about the role of the United States in South Korea’s development, reserving particularly strong criticism for its role in the Asian crisis, when it first prevented Japan from helping to provide a solution and then encouraged the International Monetary Fund to prescribe tough medicine in its wake. He is unafraid to point out the rank hypocrisy evident in Washington’s preparedness to bail out its own banks in 2008-9 having forced countries like South Korea to avoid the moral hazard that such action would have entailed a decade before.

At over 400 pages the book is plenty long enough. A bit more reflection on the broader issues arising from South Korea’s economic story would have been welcome, however, including questions over whether some form of authoritarianism is necessary for developing countries to grow, at least in their early days; and the extent to which its model might be replicable for other nations. For sure, Lee does explain well the key ingredients of South Korea’s policy mix in the 1960s and 1970s that enabled it average over double-digit growth during this period, including the tight central control of bank lending and expansionary fiscal policy.

Overall, for anyone looking for a readable explanation of South Korea’s success told mostly from the country’s own point of view, this book will prove an invaluable resource for many years to come.