This article critiques the HIID-KDI eight-volume Studies in the Modernization of the Republic of Korea from the perspective of Korean studies. The Studies' critical contributions to the field are the comprehensiveness of treatment, wealth of data, and disciplinary sophistication of the analyses they present of the principal economic and demographic phenomena of Korea's development after the Korean War and especially after 1961. The overall weakness of the Studies is their inadequate treatment of Korean history, culture, and society in relation to development, despite their great emphasis on the developmental importance of certain cultural phenomena in Korea. Their usefulness, both from the perspective of development studies and from the perspective of Korean studies, would have been enhanced by examining additional questions concerning industrial organization, labor, and the role of the military, as well as by more thorough and knowledgeable analysis of the historical, cultural, and social basis of Korea's modern development.