The integration of the agricultural and energy sectors caused by rapid growth in the biofuels market signals a new era in food policy and sustainable development. For the first time in decades, agricultural commodity markets could experience a sustained increase in prices, breaking the long-term price decline that has benefited food consumers worldwide. Whether this transition occurs, and how it will affect global hunger and poverty, remain to be seen. Will food markets begin to track the volatile energy market in terms of price and availability? Will changes in agricultural commodity markets benefit net food producers and raise farm incomes in poor countries? How will biofuels-induced changes in agricultural commodity markets affect net consumers of food? At risk are over 800 million food-insecure people, mostly in rural areas and dependant to some extent on agriculture for incomes, who live on less than $1 per day and spend the majority of their incomes on food. An additional 2 to 2.5 billion people living on $1 to $2 per day are also at risk, as rising commodity prices could pull them swiftly into a food-insecure state.

Between 1979 and 1992, the Journal of Korean Studies became a leading academic forum for the publication of innovative in-depth research on Korea. Now under the editorial guidance of Gi-Wook Shin and John Duncan, this journal continues to be dedicated to quality articles, in all disciplines, on a broad range of topics concerning Korea, both historical and contemporary.

This edition's contents are as follows:

Special section: North Korea:

Guest Editor: Jae-Jung Suh

1. Making Sense of North Korea: Institutionalizing Juche at the Nexus of Self and Other - Jae-Jung Suh
2. The Making of the North Korean State - Gwang-Oon Kim
3. The Suryong System as the Institution of Collectivist Development - Young Chul Chung
4. The Rise and Demise of Industrial Agriculture in North Korea - Chong-Ae Yu

Article

Famine Relief, Social Order, and State Performance in Late Chosn Korea - Anders Karlsson

Book Reviews

1. A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, Together with an Annotated Translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk Sagi, by Jonathan Best. Reviewed by Gari Ledyard
2. Perspectives on the Imjin War.  Reviews by Kenneth M. Swope:
   1. The Book of Corrections: Reflections on the National Crisis During the Japanese Invasion of Korea, 1592–1598, translated by Byonghyon Choi
   2. The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China, by Samuel Hawley
   3. Samurai Invasion: Japan’s Korean War, 1592–1598, by Stephen Turnbull.
3. Painters as Envoys: Korean Inspiration in Eighteenth-Century Japanese Nanga, by Burglind Jungmann. Reviewed by Insoo Cho.
4. Living Dangerously in Korea: The Western Experience 1900–1950, by Donald N. Clark. Reviewed by Kyung Moon Hwang
5. Christianity in Korea, edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Timothy S. Lee. Reviewed by Chai-sik Chung
6. Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea, by Seungsook Moon. Reviewed by William A. Hayes
7. Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy, by Gi-Wook Shin. Reviewed by William A. Hayes
8. North Korea: Between Survival and Glory.  Reviews by Sung-han Kim:
   1. North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival, edited by Young Whan Kihl and Hong Nack Kim
   2. North Korea: 2005 and Beyond, edited by Philip W. Yun and Gi-Wook Shin
   3. Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, edited by Victor D. Cha and David Kang
   4. A Troubled Peace: U.S. Policy and the Two Koreas, by Chae-Jin Lee

PESD has concluded a two year collaborative study on the Indian natural gas market with the Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe). The study explores gas demand to the year 2025 in nitrogenous fertilizer production under a range of different policy and economic scenarios.

For the fertilizer sector, significant opportunities exist to import cheap fertilizer, thereby reducing domestic gas demand, but political constraints will likely buoy gas demand. Industrial consumers will benefit from increased supplies from LNG to displace expensive liquid fuels, but cheap coal remains the dominant fuel for many industrial applications.