The late historian JaHyun Kim Haboush claimed that the Korean kingship of the Chosŏn era is critically understudied in English-language research. Christopher Lovins's King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea is therefore a welcome addition to the scholarship. Lovins observes that South Korean scholars of the post-liberation period (1945–), too, largely avoided the investigation of the eighteenth-century monarchy, as they were deeply influenced by the Japanese colonial historiography that had depicted the Chosŏn era as one of stagnation and decline, thereby justifying Japan's imperial ambitions (p. xxii). In response to these years of neglect, nationalist scholars from the 1980s onwards began to praise what they perceived as the “progressive” reforms of Chŏngjo's rule, even adding grandiose claims about his level of “consciousness” (p. xvi). Since the appearance of these revisionist histories, interest in Chŏngjo and his rule has exploded, and his kingship has even become the subject of popular television dramas.

Lovins's volume presents a more tempered account of the achievements of Chŏngjo's twenty-four-year reign (1776–1800). Historian George Rudé distinguished between what he called “forward-looking” and “backward-looking” forces as engines of political and historical change.Footnote ¹ Far from being a forward-looking ruler, Chŏngjo instead looked back to a Confucian past in an attempt to ensure political security during his reign. Employing a Palaisian framework, which sees an aristocratic/bureaucratic hybrid elite in a constant state of contention for power with the throne,Footnote ² Lovins argues that Chŏngjo was the most successful late-Chosŏn ruler in terms of maximizing royal authority over his officials (pp. xvi, 15). Lovins argues, however, that far from being a forward-looking king, Chŏngjo acted in much the same way as absolute monarchs in the early modern world, like Louis XIV.

While the focus on absolutism and early modernity is interesting (chapters 1 and 7), Lovins's book is more important because it is the first and only serious attempt in the English-language scholarship to analyze Chŏngjo's particular ruling style, his complex relationship with his officials, and the main conflicts that plagued his reign—for example, his relationship with manipulative brother-in-law and government official Hong Kug-yŏng. The book also outlines Chŏngjo's attempts at reform, and details of his key decisions make up the greater part of the book (chapters 4–6). These measures included his drive to expand bureaucratic recruitment to illegitimate sons and men from northern provinces to ensure allegiance to crown rather than faction (p. 79). In order to maintain his dominance over the bureaucracy, Chŏngjo also reversed the hierarchy in the royal lectures so that he acted as teacher to his officials (p. 152). In addition, Chŏngjo established the Changyongyŏng (Robust and Brave Regiment) and assigned such soldiers to the Hwasŏng (Illustrious Fortress) in Suwŏn to provide him with personal protection in case factions attempted a coup d’état, as they had in the 1728 Musin Rebellion. By resolutely shifting the balance of power away from the officials, Chŏngjo drove “the process of building an absolutist polity”—changes that might have succeeded had his reforms not been overturned in the years following his death.

Lovins uses a broad range of sources, including the Sillok dynastic annals. Particularly interesting is his examination of the recently discovered collection of the king's 297 private letters to officials, which shed light on what was going on behind the scenes—information omitted from official sources. A comparison of these letters with the Sillok reveals that Chŏngjo curiously intervened in crafting resignation letters of officials and on occasion ordered them to openly defy the crown (pp. 65–72). Such findings make the book a potentially useful teaching tool for university courses on Korean history and kingship, and the two background chapters on Chosŏn politics (chapter 2) and Confucianism (chapter 3) would be especially helpful to undergraduates.

Lovins's work is impressive also for its rich comparisons with contemporaneous European and Chinese rulers as well as with other Korean monarchs, although these comparisons are not always successful. His evidence often points to similarities rather than differences between the attempts of Yŏngjo (r. 1724–76), Chŏngjo's grandfather and immediate predecessor, and of Chŏngjo to impose their wills upon the bureaucracy. Both rulers came to the throne with a legitimacy problem, and both attempted to use their Confucian learning and power of rhetoric to control their officials. Lovins argues that the well-known T'angp'yŏng Policy, for example, was a means through which Yŏngjo employed “moderates unaffiliated with existing factions” to balance factional representation. However, Yŏngjo's T'angp'yŏng Policy should be understood primarily as a series of pragmatic measures to control factions, and his approach frequently shifted to reflect a fluctuating political context, which sometimes meant balancing the Noron (Patriarchs) and Soron (Disciples) officials or favoring one faction over the other (while paying lip service to the T'angp'yŏng Policy). Chŏngjo understood as well as Yŏngjo that measures to control factionalism could not remain static, which was why he introduced significant institutional changes, such as the establishment of the Kyujanggak Royal Library, as well as using the more tried and tested methods of his grandfather. A comparison between Chŏngjo and a weaker king like Kyŏngjong (r. 1720–24)—whose short rule was torn apart by rampant factionalism—may shed more light on the effectiveness of Chŏngjo's struggle to assert his authority. Nor am I completely convinced that comparisons with Louis XIV help us understand factionalism as the principle destructive force of late Chosŏn politics.

In focusing mainly on the man's great deeds, we do not always get a clear idea of the significant political forces that were mobilized against him. Particularly bewildering for the student of late-Chosŏn history is the true character of the Sip'a (Expedients) and Pyŏkp'a (Intransigents) factions that fought one another during Chŏngjo's rule. The late Yi Sŏngmu argued that these two groups were unlike any other that had previously existed in factional politics; they were neither a whole faction nor subfaction, nor were they a faction within another faction.Footnote ³ Although it is beyond the scope of Lovins's work to provide an in-depth investigation of factionalism, a few focused pages of analysis on the Expedients/Intransigents conflict and on the structure and methods of these groups would have revealed the true scale of Chŏngjo's achievement in neutralizing factional conflict.

These minor criticisms notwithstanding, King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea considerably illuminates the Korean kingship of the period and deftly outlines Chŏngjo's ability to shift the balance of power back toward the throne.