Chung Un-chan; Humandom Corp.: 240 pp., 13,000 won
This book made the bestseller list under the title “Cool Head, Warm Heart” when it was first published in 2007, and the revised edition by former Prime Minister Chung Un-chan is the right mix of personal history and the views he holds as an economist and policymaker.
Chung details how he, the last of 10 children born near Gongju, South Chungcheong Province, was won over by Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” to eventually adopt Keynesianism. As a bright young boy from a poor family, the book is invariably wistful when he recounts his early life — the death of his father and his hardworking mother and later siblings — as well as the support from renowned public figures such as Dr. Scofield and his professor and former deputy prime minister for economics Cho Soon.
The book details activism in his college days and his proactive push for a revised plan for the Sejong administrative city and for mutually-benefiting growth between large conglomerates and small companies in the chaebol-dominated Korean economy. As a Princeton-educated economist, policymaker, his emphasis on people and freedom in this “smart and soft era” where the small and convenient and the right way matters comes across well.
— KIM JI-SOO