Samsung has many faces. The enterprise that emerged from postwar obscurity to challenge Sony in making televisions and Apple in mobile phones. The chaebol, or family-run conglomerate, with companies that do everything from etching semiconductors to running an amusement park. The corporation with historic government ties, two of whose leaders have faced criminal charges. The global symbol of South Korea Inc.
One thing is plain in Geoffrey Cain's account of Samsung's rise from a vegetable and dried-fish shop called Samsung Sanghoe, opened by Lee Byung-chul (BC Lee) in 1938 in Daegu, the South Korean city recently hit by a coronavirus outbreak. Samsung is more than a company: It embodied and propelled the country's transformation from poverty into a global technology and design hub. Without Samsung, there would be no Korean Wave.
