W. W. Rostow and Economic Discourse in South Korea in the 1960s

Abstract

W. W. Rostow was one of key foreign policy makers as well as one of the outstanding economic historians in the 1950s and 1960s. Not only did he create the take-off theory, he played great roles as an advisor for President Kennedy and Johnson on national security. In his books published in the 1950s, nationalism, the necessity of social reform and new leadership were themes paid attention to in the Third World countries in order to carry out economic development.

Among all of his works and activities in the 1950s and 1960s, it is not difficult to find that his take-off theory was only a part of his perspective. Nevertheless, he was very famous as an economic development theorist not only to common people, but to scholars in South Korea in the 1960s. This is a case of the Koreanized process. Like other western theories, South Korean scholars accepted the part of western theories that were relevant to them in the light of South Korean situation.