Educators who teach survey courses on Korean history and civilization are faced with a number of challenges. How do I encourage students to be interested in premodern Korean history? Because it is impossible and impractical to teach everything, what issues should I focus on? How do I teach students to develop skills in close reading and critical thinking? What kind of textbook will be accessible to students and assist me in generating student interest and participation in class discussions? Kyung Moon Hwang's A History of Korea presents an innovative approach to addressing these types of problems.
Twenty-five years ago, educators had few choices for textbooks providing a survey of Korean history. Some, though extremely detailed and scholarly sound, were great for graduate students but nearly impenetrable and inaccessible to undergraduates. Presently, many more choices are available to instructors. Most textbooks surveying the span of Korean history have followed the approach of providing a broad overview of all the key social, political, and cultural issues emerging over time. These kinds of histories, by their very nature, often present the interpretation of Korean history as static and settled. Specialists know that most issues in Korean history are far from settled and that new discoveries in and new approaches to Korean history are continually and hotly debated by scholars. Kyung Moon Hwang's A History of Korea initiates readers into the basics of many of the debates and encourages them to think critically about questions and issues.
A History of Korea is comprised of twenty-seven chapters, all of which are between eight and twelve pages long—great for today's students! Each chapter begins with a chronology and with Professor Hwang's retelling of a seminal historical event or series of events. Each story is told in such a way that readers are being prepared to think about questions and interpretations. After each story, Hwang provides more contextual information and introduces readers to the historian's work of crafting meaning out of a mass of often-conflicting information. The book closes with a list of sources and further readings by chapter (pp. 281–94) and an index (pp. 295–309).
For example, chapter 2, “Queen Sŏndŏk and Silla's Unification of Korea” (pp. 12–23), begins with a retelling of Silla's dispatching of emissaries to Tang China in 643, its subsequent acceptance of tributary status, and its joint alliance with Tang to defeat Paekche and Koguryŏ and “unify” the Three Kingdoms. He crafts the tale in such a way to introduce such issues as the relationship between the Buddhist church and the Silla state, the problem of being a female ruler in a male-dominated world, the historical reception and memory of Kim Ch'unch'u and Kim Yusin in Kim Pusik's (1075–1151) Samguk sagi (History of the three kingdoms), the symbolic role and significance of the hwarang in the past and present, and various features of Silla culture that enabled it to adapt and succeed.
Chapter 9, “The Great Invasions” (pp. 80–87), begins with a brief discussion of the greater East Asian war of 1592–98, conventionally known as the Hideyoshi invasions of Korea, and the return of Admiral Yi Sunsin to active duty in 1597 after having spent much of the war in prison for treason. Hwang does not mince words in describing the problems in Chosŏn's sluggish response to the invasion and the factional struggles that choked the country. He describes the role of Yu Sŏngnong's (1542–1607) Chingbirok (Book of corrections) in the creation of Yi Sunsin as the great hero of the Chosŏn dynasty. He also discusses the aftermath of the war in Japan, China, and Korea in ways that invite students to think about the development of these states in the early modern period.
Chapter 18, for instance, begins with the controversial and daring doctoring of a newspaper photo of the Olympic Marathon champion Son Kijŏng by a group of journalists working for the Tonga Ilbo in 1936 (pp. 172–73). Chapter 22 begins with Kim Il Sung's “Juche” speech of 1955 (pp. 213–14). And chapter 27 begins with South Korea's stunning victory over Spain in the quarterfinal match of the World Cup in 2002, which contributed to a new kind of hopefulness and nationalistic sentiment in twenty-first-century South Korea (pp. 270–71).
Although specialists will have minor quibbles, I found the book extremely engaging and impossible to set down. The effect on some students will be electrifying when they realize that Korean history is alive and pregnant with meaning for the present-day world. Hwang's A History of Korea is innovative and engaging and encourages readers to dig deeper into Korean history, past and present.
