Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919

Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919

Author: Andre Schmid

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780231125390

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Turning from more traditional modes of historical inquiry, Korea Between Empires explores the formative influence of language and social discourse on conceptions of nationalism, national identity, and the nation-state.


Empire and Righteous Nation

Empire and Righteous Nation

Author: Odd Arne Westad

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-01-12

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0674238214

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From an award-winning historian, a concise overview of the deep and longstanding ties between China and the Koreas, providing an essential foundation for understanding East Asian geopolitics today. In a concise, trenchant overview, Odd Arne Westad explores the cultural and political relationship between China and the Koreas over the past 600 years. Koreans long saw China as a mentor. The first form of written Korean employed Chinese characters and remained in administrative use until the twentieth century. Confucianism, especially Neo-Confucian reasoning about the state and its role in promoting a virtuous society, was central to the construction of the Korean government in the fourteenth century. These shared Confucian principles were expressed in fraternal terms, with China the older brother and Korea the younger. During the Ming Dynasty, mentor became protector, as Korea declared itself a vassal of China in hopes of escaping ruin at the hands of the Mongols. But the friendship eventually frayed with the encroachment of Western powers in the nineteenth century. Koreans began to reassess their position, especially as Qing China seemed no longer willing or able to stand up for Korea against either the Western powers or the rising military threat from Meiji Japan. The Sino-Korean relationship underwent further change over the next century as imperialism, nationalism, revolution, and war refashioned states and peoples throughout Asia. Westad describes the disastrous impact of the Korean War on international relations in the region and considers Sino-Korean interactions today, especially the thorny question of the reunification of the Korean peninsula. Illuminating both the ties and the tensions that have characterized the China-Korea relationship, Empire and Righteous Nation provides a valuable foundation for understanding a critical geopolitical dynamic.


The Great Enterprise

The Great Enterprise

Author: Henry Em

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2013-03-25

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0822353725

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In The Great Enterprise, Henry H. Em examines how the project of national sovereignty shaped the work of Korean historians and their representations of Korea's past. The goal of Korea attaining validity and equal standing among sovereign nations, Em shows, was foundational to modern Korean politics in that it served a pedagogical function for Japanese and Western imperialisms, as well as for Korean nationalism. Sovereignty thus functioned as police power and political power in shaping Korea's modernity, including anticolonial and postcolonial movements toward a radically democratic politics. Surveying historical works written over the course of the twentieth century, Em elucidates the influence of Christian missionaries, as well as the role that Japan's colonial policy played in determining the narrative framework for defining Korea's national past. Em goes on to analyze postcolonial works in which South Korean historians promoted national narratives appropriate for South Korea's place in the U.S.-led Cold War system. Throughout, Em highlights equal sovereignty's creative and productive potential to generate oppositional subjectivities and vital political alternatives.


Empire of Texts in Motion

Empire of Texts in Motion

Author: Karen Laura Thornber

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13: 9780674036253

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During the first half of the 20th century, Japan was the dominant military & political force in East Asia. This study explores the transculturations of Japanese literature amongst the Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese & Manchurians whose lives had come within the sphere of the Japanese Empire.


South Korea

South Korea

Author: Daniel J. Schwekendiek

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1351488678

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During the second half of the twentieth century, an economic boom, driven by advances in technology, has led South Korea to become the world's fastest growing economy. But, there were also social factors associated with this shift. In this book, Daniel J. Schwekendiek examines South Korea's socioeconomic evolution since the 1940s.After a brief introduction to Korean history from the late Joseon Dynasty to the division of the Korean peninsula into two occupied zones in 1945, the focus of the book shifts to the rapid socioeconomic development and change that took place in South Korea in the twentieth century. Topics covered include demography, rural-urban development, economic planning, and international trade, in addition to lower and higher education. Important, but understudied areas, such as social capital, nutritional improvements, the rise of capitalist consumerism, and recent nation branding issues, are also addressed.Rarely has a resource incorporated such unique macro-historical perspectives of South Korea, especially in the context of social development. Throughout the book, the author corroborates historical events with empirical data. With over one hundred figures and illustrations, suggested readings at the end of each chapter, and comparisons with North Korea, South Korea will be a crucial reference work for scholars and advanced students in Korean and East Asian Studies.


Assessing the Landscape of Taiwan and Korean Studies in Comparison

Assessing the Landscape of Taiwan and Korean Studies in Comparison

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-04-19

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9004461310

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In Assessing the Landscape of Taiwan and Korean Studies in Comparison, the chapters offer a reflection on the state of the field of Taiwan and Korea Studies. By looking at the two, the chapters in the volume broaden an understanding of the interconnectivity of the region.


Curse on This Country

Curse on This Country

Author: Danny Orbach

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1501708333

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Imperial Japanese soldiers were notorious for blindly following orders, and their enemies in the Pacific War derided them as "cattle to the slaughter." But, in fact, the Japanese Army had a long history as one of the most disobedient armies in the world. Officers repeatedly staged coups d'états, violent insurrections, and political assassinations; their associates defied orders given by both the government and the general staff, launched independent military operations against other countries, and in two notorious cases conspired to assassinate foreign leaders despite direct orders to the contrary.In Curse on This Country, Danny Orbach explains the culture of rebellion in the Japanese armed forces. It was a culture created by a series of seemingly innocent decisions, each reasonable in its own right, which led to a gradual weakening of Japanese government control over its army and navy. The consequences were dire, as the armed forces dragged the government into more and more of China across the 1930s—a culture of rebellion that made the Pacific War possible. Orbach argues that brazen defiance, rather than blind obedience, was the motive force of modern Japanese history.Curse on This Country follows a series of dramatic events: assassinations in the dark corners of Tokyo, the famous rebellion of Saigō Takamori, the "accidental" invasion of Taiwan, the Japanese ambassador’s plot to murder the queen of Korea, and the military-political crisis in which the Japanese prime minister "changed colors." Finally, through the sinister plots of the clandestine Cherry Blossom Society, we follow the deterioration of Japan into chaos, fascism, and world war.


Boundless Winds of Empire

Boundless Winds of Empire

Author: Sixiang Wang

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2023-07-11

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 0231556012

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For more than two hundred years after its establishment in 1392, the Chosŏn dynasty of Korea enjoyed generally peaceful and stable relations with neighboring Ming China, which dwarfed it in size, population, and power. This remarkably long period of sustained peace was not an inevitable consequence of Chinese cultural and political ascendancy. In this book, Sixiang Wang demonstrates how Chosŏn political actors strategically deployed cultural practices, values, and narratives to carve out a place for Korea within the Ming imperial order. Boundless Winds of Empire is a cultural history of diplomacy that traces Chosŏn’s rhetorical and ritual engagement with China. Chosŏn drew on classical Chinese paradigms of statecraft, political legitimacy, and cultural achievement. It also paid regular tribute to the Ming court, where its envoys composed paeans to Ming imperial glory. Wang argues these acts were not straightforward affirmations of Ming domination; instead, they concealed a subtle and sophisticated strategy of diplomatic and cultural negotiation. He shows how Korea’s rulers and diplomats inserted Chosŏn into the Ming Empire’s legitimating strategies and established Korea as a stakeholder in a shared imperial tradition. Boundless Winds of Empire recasts a critical period of Sino-Korean relations through the Korean perspective, emphasizing Korean agency in the making of East Asian international relations.


Routledge Handbook of Modern Korean History

Routledge Handbook of Modern Korean History

Author: Michael J Seth

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-01-29

Total Pages: 749

ISBN-13: 1317811488

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Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century when Korea became entangled in the world of modern imperialism and the old social, economic and political order began to change; this handbook brings together cutting edge scholarship on major themes in Korean History. Contributions by experts in the field cover the Late Choson and Colonial periods, Korea’s partition and the diverging paths of North and South Korea. Topics covered include: The division of Korea Religion Competing imperialisms Economic change War and rebellions Nationalism Gender North Korea Under Kim Jong Il Global Korea The Handbook provides a stimulating introduction to the most important themes within the subject area, and is an invaluable reference work for any student and researcher of Korean History.


A Concise History of Modern Korea

A Concise History of Modern Korea

Author: Michael J. Seth

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-11-29

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1538129051

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Now in a fully revised and updated edition including new primary sources and illustrations, this comprehensive and balanced history of modern Korea explores the social, economic, and political issues it has faced since being catapulted into the wider world at the end of the nineteenth century. Placing this formerly insular society in a global context, Michael J. Seth describes how this ancient, culturally and ethnically homogeneous society first fell victim to Japanese imperialist expansionism, and then was arbitrarily divided in half after World War II. Seth traces the postwar paths of the two Koreas—with different political and social systems and different geopolitical orientations—as they evolved into sharply contrasting societies. South Korea, after an unpromising start, became one of the few postcolonial developing states to enter the ranks of the first world, with a globally competitive economy, a democratic political system, and a cosmopolitan and dynamic culture. By contrast, North Korea became one of the world's most totalitarian and isolated societies, a nuclear power with an impoverished and famine-stricken population. Considering the radically different and historically unprecedented trajectories of the two Koreas, Seth assesses the insights they offer for understanding not only modern Korea but the broader perspective of world history. All readers looking for a balanced, knowledgeable history will be richly rewarded with this clear and concise book.