The first detailed analysis in English of monarchy and governance in Korea during King Chŏngjo’s reign. Were the countries of Europe the only ones that were “early modern”? Was Asia’s early modernity cut short by colonialism? Scholars examining early modern Eurasia have not yet fully explored the relationships between absolute rule and political modernization in the highly contested early modern world. Using a comparative perspective that places Chŏngjo, king of Korea from 1776 to 1800, in context with other Korean kings and with contemporary Chinese and European rulers, Christopher Lovins examines the shifting balance of power in Korea in favor of the crown at the expense of the aristocracy during the early modern period. This book is the first to analyze in English the recently discovered collection of 297 private letters written by Chŏngjo himself. These letters were a vital channel of communication outside of official court historians’ scrutiny, since private meetings between the king and his ministers were forbidden by custom. Royal politics played out in an arena of subtle communication, with court officials trying to read the king’s unstated, elliptically hinted at intentions and the king trying to suggest what he wanted done while maintaining plausible deniability. Through close analysis of both official records and private letters, including Chŏngjo’s “secret letters,” Lovins shows that, in contrast to previous assumptions, the late eighteenth-century Korean monarchs were not weak and ineffective but instead were in the process of building an absolutist polity.

"This engaging text provides a concise history of Korea from the beginning of human settlement in the region through the late nineteenth century. All readers looking for a balanced, knowledgeable history will be richly rewarded with this clear and concise book"--

This open access book examines the depiction of Korean history in recent South Korean historical films. Released over the Hallyu (“Korean Wave”) period starting in the mid-1990s, these films have reflected, shaped, and extended the thriving public discourse over national history. In these works, the balance between fate and freedom—the negotiation between societal constraints and individual will, as well as cyclical and linear history—functions as a central theme, subtext, or plot device for illuminating a rich variety of historical events, figures, and issues. In sum, these highly accomplished films set in Korea’s past address universal concerns about the relationship between structure and agency, whether in collective identity or in individual lives. Written in an engaging and accessible style by an established historian, Fate and Freedom in Korean Historical Films offers a distinctive perspective on understanding and appreciating Korean history and culture.

Dynamic and meticulously researched, A History of Korea continues to be one of the leading introductory textbooks on Korean history. Assuming no prior knowledge, Hwang guides readers from early state formation and the dynastic eras to the modern experience in both North and South Korea. Structured around episodic accounts, each chapter begins by discussing a defining moment in Korean history in context, with an extensive examination of how the events and themes under consideration have been viewed up to the present day. By engaging with recurring themes such as collective identity, external influence, social hierarchy, family and gender, the author introduces the major historical events, patterns and debates that have shaped both North and South Korea over the past 1500 years. This textbook is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Korean or Asian history. The first half of the book covers pre-20th century history, and the second half the modern era, making it ideal for survey courses.

Chŏng Yagyong (1762-1836), or simply Tasan, is a prolific poet and one of the most brilliant minds in Korean history but remains unknown as a person.This book introduces his life through his own auto-biographical poems translated into English for the first time. Here we find him struggling between love of learning and exam hell, between aristocratic pride and economic hardship, between Catholic sympathies and Confucian heritage, and finally between two women. Astonishingly open about himself for his time and class, this vivid portrait of his is a triumph of self-expression the likes of which we have not seen in premodern Korean literature.

This book analyzes violence involving Catholics in the nineteenth-century world – revealing the motives for violence, showing the link between religious and secular grievances, and illuminating Catholic pluralism. Catholics and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Global World is the first study to systematically analyze the link between faith and violent action in modern history. Focusing on incidents involving members of the Roman Catholic Church across the globe, the book offers a kaleidoscopic overview of situations in which physical or symbolic violence attended inner-Catholic, Catholic-secular, and interreligious conflicts. Focusing especially on the role of agency, the authors explore the motives behind, perceptions of, and legitimation strategies for religion-related violence, as well as evaluating debates about conflict and discussing the role of religious leadership in violent incidents. Additionally, they illuminate the complex ways in which religious grievances interacted with secular differences and highlight the plurality of Catholic standpoints. In doing so, the book brings to light the variety of ways in which religion and violence have interacted historically. Showing that the link between faith and violence was more nuanced than theoreticians of ‘religious violence’ suggest, the book will appeal to historians, social scientists, and religious scholars.

Bringing together a multidisciplinary conversation about the entanglement of nature and society in the Korean peninsula, Forces of Nature aims to define and develop the field of the Korean environmental humanities. At its core, the volume works to foreground non-human agents that have long been marginalized in Korean studies, placing flora, fauna, mineral deposits, and climatic conditions that have hitherto been confined to footnotes front and center. In the process, the authors blaze new trails through Korea's social and physical landscapes. What emerges is a deeper appreciation of the environmental conflicts that have animated life in Korea. The authors show how natural processes have continually shaped the course of events on the peninsula—how floods, droughts, famines, fires, and pests have inexorably impinged on human affairs—and how different forces have been mobilized by the state to variously, control, extract, modernize, and showcase the Korean landscape. Forces of Nature suggestively reveals Korea's physical landscape to be not so much a passive context to Korea's history, but an active agent in its transformation and reinvention across centuries.