Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919

by Andre Schmid

Overview

Korea Between Empires chronicles the development of a Korean national consciousness. It focuses on two critical periods in Korean history and asks how key concepts and symbols were created and integrated into political programs to create an original Korean understanding of national identity, the nation-state, and nationalism. Looking at the often-ignored questions of representation, narrative, and rhetoric in the construction of public sentiment, Andre Schmid traces the genealogies of cultural assumptions and linguistic turns evident in Korea's major newspapers during the social and political upheavals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Newspapers were the primary location for the re-imagining of the nation, enabling readers to move away from the conceptual framework inherited from a Confucian and dynastic past toward a nationalist vision that was deeply rooted in global ideologies of capitalist modernity. As producers and disseminators of knowledge about the nation, newspapers mediated perceptions of Korea's precarious place amid Chinese and Japanese colonial ambitions and were vitally important to the rise of a nationalist movement in Korea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231125390
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/17/2002
Series:	Studies of the East Asian Institute Ser.
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1690L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Andre Schmid is associate professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Monumental Story
1: The Universalizing Winds of Civilization
2: Decentering the Middle Kingdom and Realigning the East
3: Engaging a Civilizing Japan
4: Spirit, History, and Legitimacy
5: Narrating the Ethnic Nation
6: Peninsular Boundaries
7: Beyond the Peninsula
Epilogue

What People are Saying About This

Carol Gluck

A fascinating account, in sparkling prose, of the way Korean intellectuals thought forth a nation in the years between the end of Chinese imperial relations in 1895 and the beginning of Japanese colonial rule in 1910. Of interest -- and relevance -- to 'pre-post-colonial' forms of knowledge in many parts of the early twentieth-century world.

— Carol Gluck, Columbia University

Cater Eckert

A groundbreaking and border-crossing work in modern Korean intellectual history. A dazzling combination of rich textual analysis, sustained argument engaging the latest historiography and theoretical literature, and limpid, elegant prose, it lays bare the genealogy of twentieth-century Korean nationalist identity and consciousness and challenges the embedded colonizer/colonized binary of much previous scholarship by situating that genealogy in a universalizing discourse which simultaneously embraced both Korea and Japan.

— Cater Eckert, Harvard University

Editorial Reviews

Schmid's book is a welcom and important contribution...deft and elegant prose

Journal of Asian History - Sheila Miyoshi jager

Schmid provides a stimulating tour of current theorizing about the nation and nationalism... profoundly stimulating and highly recommended.

Choice

A breathtaking historiography, magisterial in sweep, elegant in structure, lucid in idiom, and insightful and illuminating in interpretation... The book's strengths are likely to make it an unrivaled work of scholarship on modern Korea for a long time to come.

American Historical Review

A fascinating study in the recent intellectual history of Korea... highly recommended.

Acta Koreana - Michael Finch

In this provocative new study Andre Schmid examines how intellectuals of the Korean 'patriotic enlightenment movement' began to re-imagine their own society as a national community... [A] persuasively argued and felicitously written book.

Korean Studies - Peter Duus

I highly recommend Schmid's book as an earnest narrative that illumines the cultural and intellectual setting and dialogues.

Journal of Asian Studies - Jacqueline Pak

enriches our understanding of Korean nationalism...This book is a joy to read

Asian Studies Review - Kenneth Wells

Schmid's new book is a significant contribution to the English-language study of Korean nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century... a rich and rewarding study.

Pacific Affairs - Christine J. Kim

A fascinating study in the recent intellectual history of Korea... highly recommended.

— Michael Finch

Acta Koreana

I highly recommend Schmid's book as an earnest narrative that illumines the cultural and intellectual setting and dialogues.

— Jacqueline Pak

Journal of Asian Studies

enriches our understanding of Korean nationalism...This book is a joy to read

— Kenneth Wells

Asian Studies Review

Schmid's book is a welcom and important contribution...deft and elegant prose

— Sheila Miyoshi jager

Journal of Asian History

In this provocative new study Andre Schmid examines how intellectuals of the Korean 'patriotic enlightenment movement' began to re-imagine their own society as a national community... [A] persuasively argued and felicitously written book.

— Peter Duus

Korean Studies

Schmid's new book is a significant contribution to the English-language study of Korean nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century... a rich and rewarding study.

— Christine J. Kim

Pacific Affairs