Customer Reviews

A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598 (Campaigns and Commanders)

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

 

 

The Imjin Wars was not as well known as other historic warring episodes and it is with the resurgence of nationalism in East Asia, Korea's in particular, that this War is now attracting more popular attention. It appears that the 3 tomes, from Turnbull, Hawley and now Swope, seem to reflect 3 perspectives - Japan's, Korea's and Ming China's. It is interesting how all 3 appear to support and contradict each other in various ways and a reading of all 3 cast the differences based on nationalistic and self-serving interests in sharp relief.

In the end, I would opine that Swope's account is the most nuanced of the three in offering greater circumspection and a more in-depth exploration of research materials. The Imjin Wars wasn't a milestone event in China's history which might have tampered the nationalism of Chinese accounts. Ming China was preoccupied with and distracted by other pressing challenges, internal uprisings, rebellion and the amassing Manchurian menace to the north. Swope's research, while depicting an arrogant and shrewdly calculating Ming China, nonetheless presents a less biased, more realistic and detailed bigger picture. The Chinese were also experienced and meticulous historians and the detailed accounts present a more comprehensive and deliberate political and military context. Turnbull's book, largely sourced from Japanese historic documents, is engrossing from a military strategic point of view, although it reflects the point of view of Japan being the superior fighting force. Hawley's account is sourced almost entirely from Korean records, and while it should be the most in-depth and accurate of the three, it reads more as a narrative from Korea's angle and interpretation of history, especially when held up against statistical, logistical and factual accounts from all three, eg. the numbers of generals and soldiers involved in the battles, the tabulation of losses, the political stalling back and forth, diplomacy, etc.

In the end, all three countries were assessing their political and war strategies from their respective interests - Japan to establish a foothold on the continent and assessing its political positioning at home as Hideyoshi passed on, Korea to expel and thoroughly annihilate all Japanese invaders and China to contain the threat of Japan without overextending its resources in Korea as it was distracted by other fronts and greater enemies within its borders and gathering to its north. Unfortunately, this reticence and political deliberation was interpreted from the perspective of the Koreans as shirking from the alliance, and worse, corruption and collusion with the enemy. Swope's book is a more objective overview of the strategic significance of the Imjin Wars, even though it is sourced from Chinese records, as it presents a more balanced and accurate description without excessive glorification.

Swope's text set out to correct what he perceives is the pro-Korean bias in Hawley's book and he does a fairly good at it, to an extent. His book focuses more on the Ming and he puts it in a more positive light than Hawley. He gives a more optimistic view of the Ming under Wanli, a view that I happen to share and agree with after doing some research on my own. And that is where the book stops getting good. If you're looking for a detailed book on the Imjin War, then this is not the one for you. Hawley's text "The Imjin War" goes into more details about the engagements and despite its small and subtle pro-Korean bias, it is very well written with a wealth of sources to back it up. The same cannot be said of this one and I'll explain one of the most glaring mistakes Swope made.

I don't mean to be rude but those people who gave this book 5 stars either didn't pay attention to what Swope wrote or they haven't read other sources on the Imjin War. In Swope's book, beginning on Page 150, he implies that Song Yingchang went with the army to Korea. In Page 156, he wrote that Song Yingchang led troops into battle and participated in the capture of Pyongyang. Yet Song was nowhere near Korea during that time and his own letters showed that he never set foot in Korea. This was also documented in the Ming Shi (History of the Ming), complied during the Qing Dynasty.

I don't care what sources Swope used to come to this conclusion but I would think that Song's OWN LETTERS would supersede any other source. This has led to think that Swope didn't bother with that important primary source and probably got his information from a secondary source. Even Hawley, who he criticizes in his footnotes if you bothered looking at them, didn't write about Song setting foot in Korea. This is a major error that SHOULD NOT be present in an academic text, particularly one that claims to be correcting biases with more research. Three stars is what I'm giving it and I recommend you not waste your money and just go buy Hawley's version.

A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598 is for any college-level library strong in Asian history and culture. It offers the first full-length scholarly study in English of this conflict, uses Korean, Japanese and Chinese sources, and corrects the Japan-centered perspective of previous accounts. A 'must' for any scholarly Asian history library.

Dragon's Head and Serpent's Tail, is a remarkable work which illustrates the immense value of a cross-national analysis of one of the most pivotal events of the 16th century which still resonates down to the modern era..

As a student of Japanese History I have noted that Japanese centric historians (both eastern and western) tend to treat Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea as a footnote. The Cambridge history of Japan provides less than 30 pages of narrative, almost all of it from the Japanese perspective, with a few insights to the Ming's. The Cambridge history barely mentions the Koreans.

The same treatment can be said of the Chinese Historians, who traditionally treat Korea as a footnote.

Kenneth Swope's approach to the First Great East Asian War is remarkable, detailed, and a "page turner" read for anyone interested in East Asia. Swope carries along his fast paced work by revealing for the first time to the Western reader the nuances, complications, and horrific misunderstandings between the Koreans, the Japanese, and the Chinese Ming's, that lead to this senseless and futile bloodbath.

For students of the Korean War, or of the Japanese Annexation of Korea, there are invaluable insights in this book.

I cannot recommend this book more highly for those interested in East Asian History. For those who want just a good historical narrative, you must read this book.

I am quite disappointed with this book. The book is extremely biased with 'pro-Wanli' and 'pro-Ming' stance to the extent of losing credibility. I am not just talking about how the author interpretes history, but the way he twists and distorts facts to justify his thesis. I wish it was at least entertaining, but unfortunately, it is quite boring to read.

I felt like reading chapters of `Biography of Ming Emperor Wanli,' than a description of the Imjin War. The author provides great details of the letters that Emperor Wanli wrote and memorials he received from his ministers and generals, but not much details of the actual war that occurred far away in Korean peninsula. In fact, the author writes, "its primary purpose has been to fit the Korean campaign into the context of ... Wanli's reign."

If you really want to read this book, I suggest to first read either Turnbull's Samurai Invasion (2002 ed, not the 2008 ed) or Hawley's The Imjin War (2005), and then take it with a grain of salt.

An excellent military political history of conflict between late Ming China and Hideyoshi Japan, this book describes the character of early modern gunpowder warfare in the Far East.