Demystifying History

Long fascinated with North Korean ideology, Dr. Thomas Stock had the opportunity, late in his Ph.D. studies, to visit various state archives in South Korea.

“It changed my life as a scholar,” explains Dr. Stock, who, while doing his research, consulted the official magazine of the North Korean Workers’ Party. Published monthly, the magazine was a treasure trove of material outlining the evolution of North Korean ideology, beginning with the country’s founding after World War II.

“It was possible to trace the ideological changes and debates that were happening month-to-month,” he notes. “This was dense, Marxist-Leninist stuff, and I was looking for changes and shifts in policy and ideology, what was happening, and why?”

That research forms the basis of Dr. Stock’s forthcoming book, North Korean Ideology: A Cold War History, to be published in September by Oxford University Press. The book traces the Cold War history of North Korean ideology, beginning with its evolution from Soviet Marxism-Leninism to the distinct ideology it is today.

It is that kind of an original-source, data-driven approach that Dr. Stock also brings to his teaching at MHS. “I like to use as many primary sources as I can and give those to my students,” explains Dr. Stock, who joined MHS in 2022 and specializes in East Asian History. He teaches World History, the upper-level elective East Asian History, Hallmark Communism, and Hallmark North Korean History.

“When you look at archival documents, you can often learn so much more than you can from several books,” he explains. “It encourages critical thinking, because you can take in many viewpoints on the same topic, then come to your own conclusions. You can also see what the author is thinking, and that makes history that much more vivid.”

Dr. Stock joined MHS from Heidelberg University in Germany, where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow. It was there, during the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, that he wrote much of his book. (Born in what was then East Germany, Dr. Stock moved to the U.S. in 2002 at age 15.)

“I love research, but I really wanted to teach,” Dr. Stock says of his move to MHS. He previously taught at Korea University and Yonsei University, both in South Korea, and at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned his Ph.D. in Asian Languages and Cultures.

“I did not want to teach an A.P. curriculum,” he adds. “I wanted to bring my own interests to the classroom, similar to a university. At Miss Hall’s, I enjoy that I can teach to my passion. I can be intellectually free and also challenge my students intellectually.”

It has been a busy stretch for Dr. Stock. He also had two scholarly articles published in 2024. “Polyphonic Peace: 1989 World Festival of Youth in Pyongyang” appeared in May in the Journal of Communist and Post Communist Studies, and “North Korea in the Twilight of Communism: Ideological Transformation and International Relations during the Cold War’s Final Decade,” ran in the Journal of Cold War Studies.

Dr. Stock’s interest in North Korea dates to his undergraduate days at the University of North Texas, where he was studying Chinese history and Marxism-Leninism in Maoist China, and discovered North Korean ideology, which was even more unique.

The university did not have a Korean language program, and Dr. Stock knew he would need language skills to pursue a master’s degree in East Asian Studies. So, during his last year of college, he went to Korea on an exchange semester, learning the Korean language. He ultimately secured a place in the master’s program at Indiana University, where he earned his M.A. in East Asian Studies.

“I was always curious how North Korean ideology became what it ultimately became,” he explains. Some theories tied it to Confucianism, others to Korean tradition, but Dr. Stock was not satisfied with those answers. “Historical conditions, while important, can’t explain the evolution of an Ideology,” he notes. “What were the intellectual debates that happened?”

It was his work in the South Korean archives that unraveled that mystery. Dr. Stock also spent considerable time in East German party and state archives, where he could verify his findings.

“This was the actual historical record, right there in front of me, and I could see the historical actors speaking,” he explains. “I could see the debates going on — in North Korea and elsewhere — the back-and-forth debates in the 1960s, especially during the Sino-Soviet split. My book, for the first time, shows exactly how that ideology developed, why it changed the way it did, and when it did, and it is based on data.”