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From issues surrounding “comfort women” to forced labor, military actions, and historical distortions in textbooks, Korea and Japan have always had differing perspectives on their shared modern history. What would this history look like from a third-party point of view, neither Korean nor Japanese? World-renowned East Asia historian Alexis Dudden approaches Korea and Japan's modern history differently from the typical textbook narratives filled with names and dates or ideological approaches.

In the first two lectures, Dudden discusses how Japan, after being forcibly opened by the Perry Expedition, decided to become a Great Power and what strategies it employed in the process. In the third lecture, which examines the Treaty of Portsmouth and the Hague Emissaries, she explores why the Great Powers allowed Japan to occupy Korea. In the fourth lecture, she investigates the violence inflicted on the Korean people by Japan during the era of militaryrule, using the trial of the 105-Man Incident and accounts from foreign observers. The fifth lecture delves into the Treaty of San Francisco and The Treaty on Basic Relations Between Japan and the Republic of Korea, which set the stage for the Sado Mines dispute and compensation for forced laborers. In the sixth and seventh lectures, Dudden offers a fresh perspective on Korea and Japan's modern history by examining the controversies surrounding “comfort women” and statues of peace.