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Constructing “Korean” Origins
In this wide-ranging study, Hyung Il Pai examines how archaeological finds from throughout Northeast Asia have been used in Korea to construct a myth of state formation. This myth emphasizes the ancient development of a pure Korean race that created a civilization rivaling those of China and Japan and a unified state controlling a wide area in Asia. Through a new analysis of the archaeological data, Pai shows that the Korean state was in fact formed much later and that it reflected diverse influences from throughout Northern Asia, particularly the material culture of Han China.
Under the Ancestors’ Eyes
Under the Ancestors’ Eyes presents a new approach to Korean social history by focusing on the origin and development of the indigenous descent group. Martina Deuchler maintains that the surprising continuity of the descent-group model gave the ruling elite cohesion and stability and enabled it to retain power from the early Silla (fifth century) to the late nineteenth century. This argument, underpinned by a fresh interpretation of the late-fourteenth-century Koryŏ-Chosŏn transition, illuminates the role of Neo-Confucianism as an ideological and political device through which the elite regained and maintained dominance during the Chosŏn period. Neo-Confucianism as espoused in Korea did ...
Pre-industrial Korea and Japan in Environmental Perspective
Quoting from a reader's report "this is an original and compelling synthesis of the environmental history of Korea and Japan." Taking the history of Japan and Korea and their environmental interactions from late Pleistocene down to about 1870 AD, the author makes a convincing case for viewing the two countries together, as a history, particularly when looking at their pre-industrial experiences. Drawing from a rare combination of knowledge of both countries, Conrad Totman reveals the extent of shared timing, substance, and dynamics in the political, social, and economic development of the two countries, and in their relationship to the ecosystem. With extensive bibliography, chronology, glossary, maps and graphs.A real must.
The North And South Korean Political Systems
A comparative look at North and South Korea's political and economic institutions and processes, and an examination of their evolution since 1945. Problems such as leadership succession, democratization, nuclear weapons, education and reunification are explored.
State Formation in Korea
This volume brings together for the first time a significant body of Professor Barnes' scholarly writing on early Korean state formation, integrated so that successive topics form a coherent overview of the problems and solutions in peninsular state formation.
Korea Annual
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The Archaeology of Korea
The author examines the evolution of state-level societies and their relationship to polities in Japan and China.
Korea Journal
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The Power of the Buddhas
"Buddhism in medieval Korea is characterized as “State Protection Buddhism,” a religion whose primary purpose was to rally support (supernatural and popular) for and legitimate the state. In this view, the state used Buddhism to engender compliance with its goals. A closer look, however, reveals that Buddhism was a canvas on which people projected many religious and secular concerns and desires. This study is an attempt to specify Buddhism’s place in Koryo and to ascertain to what extent and in what areas Buddhism functioned as a state religion. Was state support the main reason for Buddhism’s dominance in Koryo? How actively did the state seek to promote religious ideals? What was the strength of Buddhism as an institution and the nature of its relationship to the state? What role did Confucianism, the other state ideology, play in Koryo? This study argues that Buddhism provided most of the symbols and rituals, and some of the beliefs, that constructed an aura of legitimacy, but that there was no single ideological system underlying the Koryo dynasty’s legitimating strategies."
Beyond Birth
"The social structure of contemporary Korea contains strong echoes of the hierarchical principles and patterns governing stratification in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910): namely, birth and one’s position in the bureaucracy. At the beginning of Korea’s modern era, the bureaucracy continued to exert great influence, but developments undermined, instead of reinforced, aristocratic dominance. Furthermore, these changes elevated the secondary status groups of the Chosŏn dynasty, those who had belonged to hereditary, endogamous tiers of government and society between the aristocracy and the commoners: specialists in foreign languages, law, medicine, and accounting; the clerks who ran local...
