This review essay introduces the landscape of Korean Studies class in the US and recent books in Korean Studies with three primary points: kinship studies in the context of war, history of social movements and the Korean diaspora. First, kinship studies based on the context of the Korean War and the Cold War have paid attention to war traumas, personal/collective sufferings and memories. Among them are studies that examine how the most intimate relationship, “kinship”, can turn into political relationships. This articulation of kinship as politics has allowed new ways of historical narrative writing and new analysis of subject formation. These studies address the process in which kinship has acquired political meanings and war lives across and beyond the battle field and ideological competitions as a continuous legacy. Second, studies of social movements linked to the developmental state have pointed out the continuity of democratization movements after the democratic transition. These studies highlight the institutionalization of democratization movements and co-existing movement with a defiance. Youths familiar and active on online communities have primarily led the disorganized and de-institutionalized political movements as a way to participate in political activities in an ordinary sense. Third, Korean diaspora studies have explored the formation of overseas Koreans as ethnic minority subjects and the contested ways that they encounter the homeland (mainly South Korea) in the context of globalization and post Cold War. Korean diaspora studies have rapidly increased as the neoliberal South Korean government recognized the “value” of overseas Koreans. This review of books in Korean studies demonstrates that they are interrogating complex historical and theoretical questions and not merely aiming to introduce and promote an unknown country to the world. Within the US, Korean Studies has emerged as a critical channel that allows American students to ask reflective questions about the relationship that the US has established with the world, and about global capitalism through the lens of Korea.