Customer Reviews

Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State Formation Theories

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book weaves together the separate fields of nationalist studies, archaeology, and history to show how the past has been used to construct a modern, Korean identity. Hyung-il Pai fills a large gap in the understanding of Korean identity in taking on difficult questions like: When was the first "Korean" state? What makes a premodern group of people or artifact "Korean?" How is the politics of the present projected retrospectively on the past in order to construct a basis for nationalism?

One caveat - this book is for the academic reader and contains much fluffy jargon. But at its heart, the arguement of this book is basically correct and needs to be understood more widely.

Final note - This book may upset Koreans, who have a deep sense of nationalism based on historical grievances against the Japanese. Pai's book shows how history is abused and distorted to establish a praiseworthy Korean history that is largely fictional. One could cite 10,000 examples of Koreans' historical inventions, but the most famous is that there was a Korean state 5,000 years ago called "Old Chosun" - this is based on an account of a myth written in the 12th century AD in the Samguk Yusa ("Miscellany of the Three Kingdoms") of a god coming down from heaven to transforms a bear into a woman and then marrying her, producing the founder of Korea. This demystification of Korean nationalist history touches nerves, as you can see from the other reviewer, but it is nonetheless a very necessary book.

I read this book precisely because it goes out on an ideological limb (a limb that distresses one prior reviewer, apparently). Pai analyzes the nationalizing impulses of twentieth-century Korean and Japanese scholars, and she shows where their various claims are supported by archaeological or documentary evidence (and where they really aren't). I gather that she isn't a linguist, formally speaking, since her arguments tend to use non-linguistic evidence; those interested in Korean historical linguistics might browse Ho Min Sohn's The Korean Language (Cambridge Language Surveys).

Unlike other reviewers, I found the book straightforward to read and well constructed, but I'm accustomed to academic monographs (albeit in a different historical field). It's part of an ongoing scholarly discourse--it uses but doesn't abuse jargon, which is refreshing.

The biases of those interested in this book are: Korea does/does not have 5000 years of history. The author is quite outspoken in his assertion that, if by "Korean" we mean a "Korean state", then a Korean state can only be traced as far back as the third century AD. Though the archeological record of those peoples who became modern Koreans go further back than that. He renders a valuable service in placing names to the various progenitors of the 5000 year history view, and the trends of thought that they represented. Not being tremenduously interested in archeology, my eyes glazed over with the myriad descriptions of dig sites that undoubtedly interest true archeologists. It is easy to see why this dissertation has offended so many Korean nationalists, particularly those in whose eyes the inhabitants of Gogoryo of 2500 years ago are identical genetic, linguistic, and cultural twins to modern day Koreans. A useful book for anyone interested in Korean origins, but targeted to those with more than an amateur interest in archeology.

I regret that this book was published by Harvard University Press because the fact shows that the publisher did not have good reviewers or proof-readers for this book. The problem of this book is:

First, it includes serious technical mistakes such as misspelling or inaccuracy of Korean names of place and event and some historical dates, which shows that there was no good proof-reading or reviewing process by Korean scholars. Yes, this book is a publication of the author's Ph D dissertation, and the author's adviser was an ancient Chinese history scholar!

Second, thus, I cannot imagine this kind of institutional relationship of academic influences was neutral in the author's opinion-formation about the history of the Korean origin. Can you imagine that an English historian is good to be an authoritative dissertation advisor of French history or even American history (especially regarding such a sensitive topic as "national origin")?

Third, I could find some serious essentialistic bias in the author's discussion, even though the author abuses in the citations of this book the names of many bigshots of so-called deconstructive or post-essentialistic theories. According to the author, most narratives of Korean history suggested by Korean historians in Korea are fakes because all of them are nationalistic. A serious prejudice. The author's assumed attitude does not seem to represent anti-nationalistic and academic objectivsity or fairness, but an Orientalistic intellectual assault blessed by the authority of writing a dissertation at an Ivy college in the US. The book just ignores decade-long local scholarship about the topic (if considering just modern one) in a very simple way without a persuasive logic or proofs. Isn't this academic imperialism?

What a convenient way of using such fashionable post-theories for concealing the lack of academic intergrity in this book! The arguments in the book seem to me like a kind of academic violence because the author uses skills of discrediting Korean scholarship just by using terms like 'nationalistic' repeatedly. It is not true.

Finally, the book has a serious contradiction because it seems to use a deconstructive way of reconstructing historical narratives, but it includes the apendices of about half of all pages of this book probably for the purpose of showing the authenticity of the author's fieldwork experience. This is a waste of pages, and such construction of the book format contradicts the author's way of narrating an alternative and fictional history.

Regretfully, I cannot help saying that this book has no value for any one who wants to look for some theoretical depth or factual discoveries in Korean history. The author's problems discussed above makes me discredit the author's arguments in the book. This book has too much serious Orientalistic biases.