Charles K. Armstrong

Charles King Armstrong (born 11 February 1962) is an American historian and the Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies at Columbia University. His works deal with revolutions, cultures of socialism, architectural history, and diplomatic history in the contexts of East Asia and modern Korea, with a focus on North Korea. His 2013 book, Tyranny of the Weak, won the John K. Fairbank Prize, but he returned the prize in 2017 after issues with the citations, including plagiarism and source fabrication, were raised. A Columbia University investigation later determined that he had committed plagiarism. On leave for the 2020 academic year, he is expected to retire from his post at the end of 2020.

Early life

Armstrong earned his B.A. at Yale University in 1984, and continued his studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, earning a diploma in Korean language in 1986. He received an M.Sc. at the London School of Economics in 1988, and his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1994.[1]

Career

Charles Armstrong is a specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, and has written or edited numerous books on modern and contemporary Korea as well as the wider East Asia region, including Japan.

He joined the Columbia faculty in 1996 and before his retirement was announced in 2019, taught courses on Korean history, U.S.-East Asian relations, the Vietnam War, and approaches to international and global history.

His book The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950, published in 2003, was based largely on captured North Korean documents in the U.S. National Archives, and was a step forward for efforts to understand North Korea more at the local level and beyond more conventional Cold War or Korean War-centered approaches.[2] He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals on such subjects as Kim Il Sung's Manchurian guerrilla heritage,[3] the "cultural Cold War" in Korea,[4] and assessments of North Korean studies as a whole.[5]

He was a Visiting Professor in 2008 at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University, has given keynote lectures at major Asian studies conferences,[6] and is a regular fixture in US media coverage of the Korean peninsula, including documentary film and television.[7][8]

Plagiarism and source fabrication in Tyranny of the Weak

In 2013, Charles Armstrong's book Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950–1992 was published by Cornell University Press. The book sought to reassess North Korean foreign policy in the Cold War. The book received positive reviews, particularly because it appeared to draw from so many foreign archives and materials in multiple languages including Russian, Chinese, German, and Korean. The book was the 2014 winner of the John K. Fairbank Prize, given to the best book in East Asian History by the American Historical Association.[9]

Beginning in September 2016, the book was severely criticized by a number of North Korea scholars (Andrei Lankov, Balázs Szalontai, Brian Myers, Fyodor Tertitskiy and others) for deceptive scholarship.[10][11][12][13] Szalontai asserted that many parts of the text closely resemble text in Szalontai's Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era and were supported by documents that either did not exist or were completely unrelated to the subject.[14] Szalontai compiled a table of 76 problematic cases[15] and later expanded the table to include 90 of such cases.[16]

Soon after the allegations were made public, Armstrong responded to NK News that he "did not comment on any specific issues critics have raised with the book".[10] On December 30, 2016, Armstrong directly addressed the issues raised by the critics, stating: "For those who find the book flawed, inaccurate or insufficiently researched, the answer is simple: write a better book."[17] Armstrong stated that he had submitted 52 corrections to Tyranny of the Weak to the publisher Cornell University Press and these would be included in the next printing of the book.[17] The press confirmed this with a single tweet on January 11, 2017, saying "Charles Armstrong responds to critics, issues corrections to Tyranny of the Weak" and linking to Armstrong's blog post.[18] However, Armstrong later deleted the post and his entire blog.[19]

In June 2017, Armstrong returned the John King Fairbank Prize to the American Historical Association in response to critical queries made by the association. In its press release, the association stated that they had "identified a set of citations that did not meet professional standards" and that "Dr. Armstrong has corrected the citation errors and, out of respect for the AHA, has returned the Fairbank Prize."[20] Columbia University made no statement at this time, but did announce on June 1 that Armstrong had been awarded a 2017 President's Global Innovation Fund Grant for work with Joseph Terwilliger on exchanges with North Korean physicians.[21]

The return of the prize prompted the head of Cornell University Press to state in early July 2017 that the press would imminently issue a revised edition of the book.[22] The new edition of the book appeared in the summer of 2017, without any formal announcement from the press. The new text contained few changes to the prose, but did feature changes to dozens of footnotes now citing Szalontai's Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era rather than archival documents. It also included two new sentences from Armstrong in the front matter of the text: "I would like to add a special note of thanks to Dr. Balázs Szalontai, whose pioneering research was insufficiently acknowledged in the prior printing of this book and who pointed out to me numerous attribution errors in chapters 2 and 3. I apologize for my previous oversights and gratefully acknowledge Dr. Szalontai's assistance in correcting these errors."

A short review of the controversy was published in a collective blog Retraction Watch.[23][24] It was also covered by South Korean,[25][26] Chinese media,[27] and the New York Post.[28]

In an extensive interview in December 2019, Szalontai revealed that Armstrong had not worked in any Russian archives at all, and said "some of the East German sources [in Tyranny of the Weak] are fake, some are not fake," and further discussed some of the efforts by Andrei Lankov and other scholars to methodically check Armstrong's suspicious sources.[29]

In February 2020, Armstrong's 2005 article: ‘“Fraternal Socialism”: The International Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953-62’, published in the journal Cold War History, was retracted for plagiarism from Szalontai's book.[30][31]

Columbia University's investigation

On September 10, 2019, Columbia University released a letter to faculty explaining that it had concluded a multi-part formal investigation of Armstrong's research conduct and determined that he had committed plagiarism. It further announced that Armstrong will retire at the end of 2020.[32]

According to documents obtained by journalists Khadija Hussein and Karen Xia, Columbia's investigation concluded in January 2019 and its scope extended back to Armstrong's tenure file submitted in 2003.[32] That tenure file included draft chapters of what would ultimately become Armstrong's book Tyranny of the Weak. According to Balázs Szalontai, who obtained a copy of the investigation's draft report in 2018,[33] the investigation found evidence in the tenure file that Armstrong had plagiarized Szalontai's dissertation.[34] A partial copy of an earlier draft of Columbia's investigation report was made public by the Retraction Watch website on September 20, 2019.[35]

Selected works
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Monographs

  • 2017 — Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 (first edition "reprinted with corrections")
  • 2013 — Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992
  • 2006 — The Koreas (reissued in 2013/14)[36]
  • 2003 — The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950[37]

Edited volumes and textbooks
  • 2005 — Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (co-edited with Samuel S. Kim, Stephen Kotkin and Gilbert Rozman)
  • 2002 — Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (textbook, reissued in 2006)[38]

Articles and book chapters
  • 2015 — "Socialist Postmodernism: Conceptual and comparative analysis of recent representative architecture in Pyongyang, Astana and Ashgabat, 1989-2014,"Tiempo devorado: revista de historia actual, Vol.2 (2), pp. 98–118 (article; co-authored with Jelena Prokopljevic)[39]
  • "The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950 - 1960," Japan Focus (article)[40]
  • 2005 — "'Fraternal Socialism': The International Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953-61," Cold War History May 2005, Vol.5(2), pp. 161–187 (article; retracted by the journal on 10 February 2020 due to the author's 'fabrication and falsification of sources')[31]
  • 1998 — "'A Socialism of Our Style': North Korean Ideology in a Post-Communist Era," in North Korean Foreign Relations in the post-Cold War Era (book chapter; editor: Samuel S. Kim)[41]
  • 1990 — "South Korea's 'Northern policy'," in Pacific Review, Vol.3(1), pp. 35–45 (article)

Working papers
  • 2011 -- "'Juche' and North Korea’s Global Aspirations," North Korea International Documentation Project Working Paper #1[42]
  • 1994 -- "The Origins and Future Demise of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, 11 p. (working paper)[43]

Ph.D. thesis
  • 1994 — State and Social Transformation in North Korea, 1945-1950 (University of Chicago)

Honors

Notes
    1. Columbia University, faculty bio notes Archived 2010-10-18 at the Wayback Machine
    2. Dennehy, Kristine (2003). "The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (review)". Korean Studies. 27 (1): 138–139. doi:10.1353/ks.2005.0005. ISSN 1529-1529.
    3. Armstrong, Charles (1995). "Centering the Periphery: Manchurian Exile(s) and the North Korean State". Korean Studies. 19: 1–16. doi:10.1353/ks.1995.0017. JSTOR 23719136.
    4. Armstrong, Charles (February 2003). "The Cultural Cold War in Korea, 1945-1950". Journal of Asian Studies. 62 (1): 71–99. doi:10.2307/3096136. JSTOR 3096136.
    5. Armstrong, Charles K. (May 2011). "Trends in the Study of North Korea". The Journal of Asian Studies. 70 (2): 357–371. doi:10.1017/S0021911811000027. ISSN 1752-0401. S2CID 162656969.
    6. "The Korean War and the East Asian Peace by Professor Charles Armstrong (Columbia University)". SOAS University of London. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    7. "Who Are They? - Some Historical Perspective | Kim's Nuclear Gamble". PBS. Archived from the original on 2017-09-06. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    8. Stanford University, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, North Korea in The Cold War International System," Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine April 10, 2009.
    9. "John K. Fairbank Prize Recipients". Archived from the original on 2019-04-06. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    10. Hotham, Oliver (2016-09-30). "Ivy League professor accused of discrepancies in North Korea book". Archived from the original on 2019-03-24. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    11. Lankov, Andrei (2016-10-05). ""Tyranny of the Weak": The row engulfing North Korean studies". Archived from the original on 2019-03-24. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    12. Myers, Brian (September 13, 2019). "Revoking a Recommendation". Archived from the original on September 13, 2019. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
    13. Tertitskiy, Fyodor. "Speaking truth to power: The biggest scandal in Korean studies should be talked about". Archived from the original on 2017-01-10. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
    14. Szalontai, Balazs. "Re-revised posting "Revoking a Recommendation"". Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
    15. Szalontai, Balazs. "A Table of 76 Examples of Source Fabrication, Plagiarism, and Text-Citation Disconnects in Charles K. Armstrong's Tyranny of the Weak (2013)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-12-07. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    16. Szalontai, Balazs. "Invalid Source Citations in Charles K. Armstrong' s Tyranny of the Weak: A Table of 90 Cases". Archived from the original on 2017-07-16. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    17. Armstrong, Charles. "Corrections to Tyranny of the Weak". Charles Armstrong's blog. Archived from the original on 2017-01-07.
    18. Cornell University Press [@cornellpress] (January 11, 2017). "Charles Armstrong responds to critics, issues corrections to Tyranny of the Weak charleskarmstrong.com/2016/12/30/corrections-to-tyranny-of-the-weak/ … #NorthKorea" (Tweet). Archived from the original on September 13, 2019 – via Twitter.
    19. McCook, Author Alison (2018-04-20). "After issuing dozens of corrections to high-profile book, historian shuts down his blog". Retraction Watch. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    20. "2014 Fairbank Prize Returned". historians.org. 2017-06-29. Archived from the original on 2019-03-24. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    21. "Charles K. Armstrong Receives 2017 President's Global Innovation Fund Grant from Columbia". weai.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on 2019-09-07. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    22. "History book award returned amid questions about citation errors". www.insidehighered.com. Archived from the original on 2019-09-07. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    23. McCook, Alison (2016-10-13). "Criticism swirls around high-profile history book about North Korea". Archived from the original on 2019-09-07. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    24. McCook, Alison (2017-01-31). "High-profile book on North Korea earns 52 corrections". Archived from the original on 2019-07-23. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
    25. "미국의 대표적인 북한학자 찰스 암스트롱이 표절 의혹에 휘말렸다" [Charles Armstrong, a prominent North Korean scholar entangled in suspicions of plagiarism] (in Korean). 2016-10-07. Archived from the original on 2019-03-24. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    26. "암스트롱 콜럼비아대 교수가 자신의 표절 시비에 대해 답했다" [Columbia University professor Armstrong responded to the plagiarism dispute over his work] (in Korean). 2017-01-11. Archived from the original on 2019-03-24. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
    27. Fu Shiye 傅适野 (2016-10-11). "被举报的哥大教授回应澎湃新闻：再版时将更正脚注错误". The Paper. Archived from the original on 2017-11-10. Retrieved 2019-09-17.
    28. Klein, Melissa (2019-10-12). "Columbia professor booted for plagiarizing book on North Korea". New York Post. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
    29. "DPRK history and plagiarism in Korean Studies - NKNews Podcast Ep.106". NK News - North Korea News. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
    30. Marcus, Author Adam (2020-02-20). "Disgraced Korea scholar, formerly of Columbia, loses paper for plagiarism". Retraction Watch. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
    31. "Statement of Retraction: '"Fraternal Socialism": The International Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953-62'". Cold War History. 0: 1. 2020-02-10. doi:10.1080/14682745.2020.1724643 (inactive 2020-06-05). ISSN 1468-2745.
    32. "History professor Charles Armstrong found guilty of plagiarism, to retire in 2020". Columbia Daily Spectator. Archived from the original on 2019-09-13. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    33. "Award-winning North Korea scholar plagiarized sources, university finds | NK News - North Korea News". 2019-09-11. Archived from the original on 2019-09-13. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    34. "The Failure of De-Stalinization in North Korea, 1953-1964. The DPRK In a Comparative Perspective. | Central European University". archive.ceu.hu. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
    35. "Columbia historian stepping down after plagiarism finding". Retraction Watch. September 20, 2019. Archived from the original on September 22, 2019.
    36. Armstrong, Charles K. (2014). The Koreas. EBSCOhost (Second ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-16132-2.
    37. "Product Details". Cornell University Press. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
    38. "Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State". CRC Press. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
    39. Prokopljevic, Jelena; Armstrong, Charles K. (2015-07-19). "Socialist Postmodernism. Conceptual and comparative analysis of recent representative architecture in Pyongyang, Astana and Ashgabat, 1989-2014". Tiempo Devorado. 2 (2): 210–231. ISSN 2385-5452.
    40. "The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950 - 1960'1950-1960 | The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus". apjjf.org. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
    41. Kim, Samuel S.; Armstrong, Charles K., eds. (1998). North Korean foreign relations in the post-Cold War era. Hong Kong ; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-590604-2.
    42. "Juche and North Korea's Global Aspirations". Wilson Center. 2011-07-07. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
    43. Armstrong, Charles K. (1994). The origins and future demise of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Occasional paper series ;no. 5, 1994. Ottawa, Ont.: Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.
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