The Han Commanderies in Early Korean History, edited by Mark E. Byington, is the product of the four-part workshop “Korea and the Han Commanderies,” organized by the Early Korea Project at the Korea Institute at Harvard University in 2008. It is comprised of an introduction, ten essays by scholars primarily from South Korea, and an index. The work was compiled with the intent to combine nuanced interpretations of the extant literary materials with the latest archeological finds. Because only a handful of scholars in the West work on early Korea, another purpose of the monograph is to make Korean scholarship accessible to Western scholars.
The understanding and interpretation of its early history is crucial to national identity in Korea. Disregarding material evidence to the contrary, the North Korean government and some South Korean nationalists hold the view that the four Han commanderies established by Han emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BCE) beginning in 108 BCE were not actually located on the Korean peninsula, and that the longest-lasting commandery, Lelang (108 BCE–313 CE), was not located in modern Pyongyang. Arguably there was no “China,” no “Korea,” and no “Japan” in ancient times, so modern uses of ancient history are at the heart of the controversy. Nevertheless, the Han conquest of what Korean scholars refer to as Old Chosŏn and the period of the four Han commanderies were crucial to state formation in Manchuria and the Korean peninsula. The Korean national narrative holds that émigrés and refugees from Old Chosŏn seeded the nascent Korean kingdoms of Koguryŏ, Paekche, Silla, and Kaya, and that because the remnant of Old Chosŏn was difficult to control, the Han commanderies in Korea functioned differently than other Chinese commanderies.
The essays in this volume are for the most part balanced and provide engaging insights, as well as seminal surveys of the extant archaeological data. Oh Youngchan and Mark E. Byington's “Scholarly Studies on the Han Commanderies in Korea” introduces the reader to the written sources and archeological data available on this period and provides an overview of the methodologies and interpretations that have characterized and influenced research from the Japanese colonial period to the present. This essay should definitely be read first because it contextualizes the challenges that a student of this period faces—from the Japanese colonial agenda to the communist-inspired historiography of North Korea. Also, Byington's “Historical Geography of the Han Commanderies in Korea” is an evenhanded analysis of the most supportable theories on the locations of the various commanderies and their changes over time.
Song Ho Jung's essay, “Old Chosŏn—Its History and Archaeology,” is a more or less impartial attempt to describe the development of Old Chosŏn by combining the literary material on Old Chosŏn found in Chinese sources with the various types of archaeological data unearthed in recent times. Song deftly strikes a balance between validating the problematic periodization of Old Chosŏn as the oldest Korean state and recognizing the “fundamental problem of conventional trends of research” on Old Chosŏn that proceed from “preconceived ideas rather than objective analysis” (p. 79).
The core material on Lelang in the book is Kwon O-jung's “The History of Lelang Commandery,” a representative scholarly survey; Oh Youngchan's “The Ruling Class of Lelang Commandery,” an inspired reevaluation that centers on the intermingling between sinicized indigenous people and indigenizing Han Chinese; and Jung In-seung's “The Material Culture of Lelang Commandery,” a straightforward summary of archaeological finds.
One of the most impressive essays in the collection is Kim Byung-joon's “Lelang Commandery and Han China's Commandery-Based Rule.” Kim approaches the Lelang Commandery as a scholar of Han China, and critically assesses the widely held assumption that the Lelang Commandery was unique vis-à-vis other commanderies in the Han empire. By analyzing Lelang in context with other Han commanderies, he cogently argues that “resistance by the indigenous populations of Lelang should not be overemphasized” (pp. 251–58, 283), a dual-system of governance did not characterize the Lelang Commandery but the conquerors and the conquered were registered differently so the government could “institute preferential policies favoring the newly conquered peoples” (pp. 258–69, 283), and “indigenous people were actively recruited to engage in the administrative system based on written documents” (pp. 269–78, 284). In essence, although the Lelang Commandery was subject to special circumstances in many ways, exceptional conditions were not unique to Lelang and every Han commandery had to apply variations of Han legal codes to function in its field of operations given regional and temporal differences.
An important characteristic of this book is that there is no attempt to present a unified vision of the Han commanderies in early Korean history. Scholars are divided on the interpretation of literary and archaeological data, so conscientious readers should follow the evidence closely. This book should be required reading for graduate students in Korean history and archaeology, as well as scholars and students of Han China and its material culture. It is not intended for an undergraduate or general audience.
