This is the first English-language book detailing a six-decade campaign in South Korea to expose unnerving atrocities that occurred in the wake of World War II. This campaign culminated in the establishment in 2000 of the National Commission for the Investigation of the Truth about the April 3, 1948, events on Jeju–which is a 700-square-mile island due South from the Korean peninsula. This truth commission, operative between 2000 and 2003, provided details of the indiscriminate murder of up to 30,000 Jeju islanders by state police and military forces, in the name of counterinsurgency.

The Jeju Commission was not inevitable, and its work was surprisingly productive. From a human rights perspective, it is a success story. However, this description risks making Hun Joon Kim’s topic seem narrow, or his aims excessively normative. Neither is the case. Much is at stake in this analysis of the commission, including the untold efforts of persecuted individuals who strove tirelessly for recognition, the long shadow cast by Cold War geopolitics, and the ideological divisions buried deep in the soul of a nation.

The Massacres at Mt. Halla operates on three levels. On one level, it uses the Jeju Commission as a window into the particularities of South Korean politics. For example, the author walks us through the complexities of party politics at the origins of independent Korea, explaining that “the rightists pursued liberal democracy, while the leftists favored social democracy” (p. 22). Kim also describes how these alignments intersected with the interests of the post–World War II U.S. military government. Tensions came to a head on Jeju island, a “labyrinth of fortifications” (p. 27) positioned uncomfortably between Korea, Japan, and China. There, a nascent communist insurgency challenged the authority of the U.S. military, of right-wing police forces, and of the United Nations, which harbored plans to separate the country between the North and the South.

For their resistance, the citizens of Jeju were tortured and slaughtered by state forces, as was a much smaller group who fell victim to the insurgency. The book opens with excruciating details of violence. These events, which arguably started on April 3 in 1948 remained in dispute until the Jeju Commission added clarity. I say “arguably” because Kim alerts us to politicized disputes over every detail of this history: whether it started in 1947 or 1948, whether it was an “uprising,” and whether the military engaged in “mass killing” (p. 140). In the 1990s, South Koreans also disagreed over whether to seek “truth,” a term preferred by victims of state forces, or to seek “reconciliation,” preferred by victims of the communist insurgency (p. 91). Kim, himself an expert in the comparative politics of truth telling, effortlessly guides us through these subtleties.

The second level on which the book operates is as a case study in transitional justice, a growing interdisciplinary field focused on how countries reckon with legacies of atrocity. This field has been inordinately focused on Latin America and Africa, and on justice mechanisms that occur in short order following democratic transitions or civil wars. In a corrective, Kim uses the case of South Korea, an Asian country that took 50 years to do anything about atrocity, to answer two questions. How did an ideologically divided nation produce a truth commission that ultimately published an authoritative report after decades of denial? And how was that commission able to contribute to democratic consolidation in South Korea?

The answers to both questions are basically the same: persistent activism and the “power of officially acknowledged truth” (p. 162). Activism around Jeju started as early as 1960, with a small democratic opening following authoritarian rule. It was revived in 1978 and has continued since. Jeju activists were successful in linking up with pro-democracy student groups in the 1980s; with anti-neoliberal, pro-human rights groups around the country’s jubilee in 1998; and with politicians who had the power to implement the truth commission’s recommendations in the 2000s. Along the way, this story involved some very brave souls, like Hyun Gi-yeong, who was repeatedly detained for publishing a silence-breaking short story about Jeju, “Aunt Suni,” in 1978 (p. 54). But the larger lesson is that the persistence of activists was the main driver of national action.

At times the analysis of lessons learned is inconsistent. For example, with regards to Jeju activists’ blocked efforts in 1960, we are told that such a “failed experience will undermine future efforts” (p. 59); however, in the conclusion, Kim argues that “small but innovative first steps . . . can make a big difference” (p. 164). Ultimately, though, he usefully outlines factors conducive to the success of the truth commission, including well-written legislation, the decision to collect a “comprehensive” and evidence-based truth, and the tendency for conservative’s obstructions to backfire (pp. 143–44). In combination, these factors meant that the truth commission would make a significant contribution despite the fact that its ideologically divided commissioners brawled during their meetings (p. 137). The Jeju Commission’s recommendations were well received, and concrete changes, like the alteration of textbooks, were undertaken.

Here is where Kim’s analysis enters its third, and most problematic, level. At this highest level, the book endeavors to provide a general historical thesis about the power of testimony and truth. Throughout, we are told that efforts to cover up the truth repeatedly backfired on pro-military factions, who favored a Jeju narrative that trumped up the communist menace and the need for national security. But why did conservatives’ efforts backfire?

Kim’s answers are oversimplified, and at times border on the transcendental. Take these selections, for instance: The facts “proved to be much more enduring than the government-fabricated version” (p. 42); Hyun’s short story “healed the depressed and shattered hearts of living victims and family members of the dead” (p. 60); or “as they [officials] tried harder and harder to efface the facts, the brutality of the state power was revealed more and more openly” (p. 81). With these oversimplifications and with their emphasis on the “intrinsic value of truth commissions” (p. 165), the book strikes the same chords as Vaclav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, 1979. Truth is an end in itself. Once told, it shatters totalitarian forces. The truth sets us free.

This is certainly an inspiring story, and I have no doubt that this explanation would resonate among human rights–minded South Koreans. However, in comparative terms, I question the external validity of this finding. Put differently, I wonder how powerful or resilient truth is in other cases. I cannot help but think of the United States and Israel, where facts of untold abuses—mass incarceration, torture, and occupation–are constantly exposed, and exist in plain sight, but encourage little action. In these societies, the right wing does not deny facts; it denies the importance of those facts, or argues that the enemy is morally equivalent. This tendency seems to be aggravated by the current media environment, wherein information is both infinite and infinitely politicized. How adaptable are the lessons Kim draws from South Korea to the situation in which Americans find themselves in 2017?

The answer may hinge on the need for officially acknowledged truths, rather than those that are merely exposed and exchanged by information networks. If that is the case, then the real question is why governments or nations collectively accept responsibility for previous atrocity—like Germany has. This may be a straightforward empirical question, or it may be unanswerable.

In the end, though, The Massacres at Mt. Halla cannot be faulted for failing to address these deeply philosophical issues. Instead, it should be commended for being the rare academic work that aims to be both didactic and analytical, that exhibits command over particulars while reaching toward the general, and that is concise yet thorough. It should also be praised for extending a local project of witness from South Korea to a global audience. This book should be assigned reading for any interdisciplinary audience interested in the complexities of a politics centered on justice.