Frank Hoffmann's new book falls somewhat between conventional genres. It is the first volume of a planned three-volume series under the overall editorship of Andreas Schirmer. Volumes 2 and 3, on “Koreans in Central Europe” and “Central Europeans in Korea,” respectively, will be comprised of articles by multiple authors, while this first book in the series is devoted entirely to Hoffmann's research. Meanwhile, Berlin Koreans and Pictured Koreans itself does not take the usual form of a monograph; it is divided into three unequal sections, with the first, entitled “The Berlin Koreans, 1909–1940s,” by far the longest.
So one gets one's scholarship here in slightly unusual packaging, but what scholarship it is! It is worth beginning with the details, because Hoffmann's ability to reconstruct the biographies of his Berlin Koreans (of which there are twelve in all) from a plethora of published and archival sources is truly impressive, and because...
