[News Figures] Professor Najongil, Pioneer in Western Modern History, Passes Away

Professor Emeritus Najongil of the Department of Western History at Seoul National University, a pioneer in the field of Western modern history studying the "transition from the Middle Ages to modern capitalism," passed away on the 21st at around 9:30 a.m. He was 98 years old.

[Photo by Yonhap News, provided by the bereaved family]

Born in Naju, Jeollanam-do, the late professor graduated from Mokpo Commercial High School and Seoul National University’s Department of History. He earned his master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his doctorate from Seoul National University. After serving as an assistant professor at the College of Liberal Arts at Chonnam National University, he taught students as a professor in the Department of Western History at Seoul National University until 1992. He also served as president of the Korean Association of Western Historians from 1982 to 1984 and was the inaugural president of the British History Research Association (renamed the British Historical Society in 1996) in 1991.

His research focused on the formation of early capitalism. His studies on the "enclosure movement," where English peasants were driven off farmland and became laborers, were reflected in his books such as Studies in Modern British History (1988), Perspectives and Methods in World History (1992), and History of Britain (2005). He also translated works including E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (Changbi, 2000), Immanuel Wallerstein’s Historical Capitalism and Capitalist Civilization (Changbi, 1993), and The Modern World-System (Kkachi, 1999). In 2012, he published a 1,576-page translated volume titled Documents on the Declaration of Human Rights: Freedom and Equality (Hanul), which compiles Western human rights documents from England’s 13th-century Magna Carta to the United Nations’ Millennium Declaration in 2000.

The late professor was known to be close friends with DJ. At a commemorative presentation ceremony for Professor Na’s retirement held at the Seoul National University Faculty Club in 1992, Kim Dae-jung, then president of the Peace Democratic Party and a friend from Mokpo Commercial High School, attended, drawing attention. In a media interview during his lifetime, he recalled, "I first met (DJ) in the third year of a five-year high school. He was in the employment track during his first and second years but moved to the academic track in the third year, and we studied together until graduation."