Dr Kim Kyong-Dong is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Seoul National University, South Korea. The preeminent sociologist in Korea, he has devoted his career to analyzing and comparing "east" and "west" issues from a cultural perspective. After gaining his PhD at Cornell University in the US, Professor Kim was a visiting scholar in the US, Taiwan, France and a Fellow  at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC, as well as President of the Korean Sociological Association. He has widely published in English, Korean, Japanese and French on issues of development and modernization, social change and industrialization, sociological theory, education and religion.