What do you think?
Rate this book
Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876-1945
According to conventional interpretations, the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 destroyed a budding native capitalist economy on the peninsula and blocked the development of a Korean capitalist class until 1945. In this expansive and provocative study, now available in paperback, Carter J. Eckert challenges the standard view and argues that Japanese imperialism, while politically oppressive, was also the catalyst and cradle of modern Korean industrial development. Ancient ties to China were replaced by new ones to Japan - ties that have continued to shape the South Korean political economy down to the present day.
Eckert explores a wide range of themes, including the roots of capitalist development in Korea, the origins of the modern business elite, the nature of Japanese colonial policy and the Japanese colonial state, the relationship between the colonial government and the Korean economic elite, and the nature of Korean collaboration. He conveys a clear sense of the human complexity, archival richness, and intellectual challenge of the historical period. His documentation is thorough; his arguments are compelling and often strikingly innovative.
Eckert explores a wide range of themes, including the roots of capitalist development in Korea, the origins of the modern business elite, the nature of Japanese colonial policy and the Japanese colonial state, the relationship between the colonial government and the Korean economic elite, and the nature of Korean collaboration. He conveys a clear sense of the human complexity, archival richness, and intellectual challenge of the historical period. His documentation is thorough; his arguments are compelling and often strikingly innovative.
424 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1991
7 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
About the author
Carter J. Eckert
7 books5 followersCarter J. Eckert was an American historian who specialized in Korean history. He was the Yoon Se Young Professor of Korean History at Harvard University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 12, 2018
I suppose Carter J. Eckert did not make himself popular among Korean scholars after publishing this book, as he demonstrates the "colonial" roots of Korean capitalism, therefore going against all the usual Korean conceptions. Korean Scholars usually defend the acceptation, that a form of capitalism (implying an accumulation of capitals and the birth of a bourgeois class) was burgeoning in the late Yi Dynasty-era and that Japanese interrupted this process. It might be true, but this is not how it happened, since Japan indeed colonized Korea and left a deep impact on the Korean economy. We should not forgot that Park Chung Hee did not hesitate to borrow terms from "Meiji Japan" to name his own development plans.
The purpose of this book is of course not to rehabilitate Japanese colonialism in Korea and the author does not forget to mention the unfair treatment Koreans had to endure. However, some Koreans took benefit of the new paradigms introduced by the Japanese to grow as a local bourgeoisie. The story of the "Kochang Kims" serve here as a red wire of this evolution. Coming from a Yangban (old aristocratic elites in Korea) family and brought together with landowners through marriages, the Kochang Kims could establish themselves as the spearhead of the nascent Korean bourgeoisie. Just as Park would a few decades later, the Kochang Kims took their inspiration from Japanese models and not from Korean ones. Their evolution through the colonial time is quite worth observing. At first presenting Japan as an opportunity to modernize Korea and presenting themselves as a "nationalist bourgeoisie", they progressively evolved to close accomplices of the assimilation of Korea to Japan. Eckert does not fall in a "class struggle" schema, emphasizing the Korean bourgeoisie as a complex group with different ideologies and not as a monolithic block.
Eckert also explores the limitations Korean bourgeoisie was facing. Although they worked with the Japanese occupant, their activities were limited to what Japanese consented to. At first, Korea was considered by the Japanese as the "granary" of Japan and Korean bourgeoisie focused for this reason on the production of agricultural good. Later on, after the First World War broke out, the European cotton production declined and it was up to Japan to take over the markets abandonned by the Europeans. As Japan could not satisfy the demands all by itself, it delegated some of the production to the Korean industry. After Japan succesfully captured Manchuria, Korea became the Japanese outpost on the Asian continent and Korean entrepreneurs could accordingly invest in Manchuria, send settlers and became therefore an important piece in Japanese imperialism (not to forget that a big part of the Kwangtun Army and Police forces in Manchuria were composed of Koreans). Finally, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Korea became essential to produce the necessary supplies for the Japanese soldiers fighting in China. It is also in this period, that the most threatening policies against Korean identity took place with the forced assimilation attempts.
Once again, this book is not an apologia of Japanese colonialism but an attempt to explain reasonably the influence Japan had on the birth of Korean capitalism and the birth of the Korean bourgeoisie and showing how some Korean individuals could benefit of the situation and why they chose to collaborate with Japan.
The purpose of this book is of course not to rehabilitate Japanese colonialism in Korea and the author does not forget to mention the unfair treatment Koreans had to endure. However, some Koreans took benefit of the new paradigms introduced by the Japanese to grow as a local bourgeoisie. The story of the "Kochang Kims" serve here as a red wire of this evolution. Coming from a Yangban (old aristocratic elites in Korea) family and brought together with landowners through marriages, the Kochang Kims could establish themselves as the spearhead of the nascent Korean bourgeoisie. Just as Park would a few decades later, the Kochang Kims took their inspiration from Japanese models and not from Korean ones. Their evolution through the colonial time is quite worth observing. At first presenting Japan as an opportunity to modernize Korea and presenting themselves as a "nationalist bourgeoisie", they progressively evolved to close accomplices of the assimilation of Korea to Japan. Eckert does not fall in a "class struggle" schema, emphasizing the Korean bourgeoisie as a complex group with different ideologies and not as a monolithic block.
Eckert also explores the limitations Korean bourgeoisie was facing. Although they worked with the Japanese occupant, their activities were limited to what Japanese consented to. At first, Korea was considered by the Japanese as the "granary" of Japan and Korean bourgeoisie focused for this reason on the production of agricultural good. Later on, after the First World War broke out, the European cotton production declined and it was up to Japan to take over the markets abandonned by the Europeans. As Japan could not satisfy the demands all by itself, it delegated some of the production to the Korean industry. After Japan succesfully captured Manchuria, Korea became the Japanese outpost on the Asian continent and Korean entrepreneurs could accordingly invest in Manchuria, send settlers and became therefore an important piece in Japanese imperialism (not to forget that a big part of the Kwangtun Army and Police forces in Manchuria were composed of Koreans). Finally, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Korea became essential to produce the necessary supplies for the Japanese soldiers fighting in China. It is also in this period, that the most threatening policies against Korean identity took place with the forced assimilation attempts.
Once again, this book is not an apologia of Japanese colonialism but an attempt to explain reasonably the influence Japan had on the birth of Korean capitalism and the birth of the Korean bourgeoisie and showing how some Korean individuals could benefit of the situation and why they chose to collaborate with Japan.
July 16, 2017
Very well researched book. It shows that Korean Miracle has seeds from colonial period experience of close relationship with government policy and business expansion to Manchuria. That was new journeys never taken before.
December 3, 2025
Great stuff, kind of wish I had read it before the Cumings book as I think it sets things up quite well in the conclusion for a study of South Korea’s further development and why the Korean bourgeoisie were accustomed to working within an authoritarian framework.
December 23, 2019
I was assigned to read the preface, 3 chapters, and the conclusion of Offspring of Empire for a course I am auditing on the Japanese Empire. This is admittedly maybe about 40% of the text. But I am going to review it anyway because I think it is a representative sample of the whole book.
Eckert deserves high praise for exhibiting many features one likes to see in an academic approach to a topic. First, it is based on broad array of Korean, Japanese, and English language sources. These include such primary sources as government reports, newspaper articles, and correspondence between various people noted in the text. It also relies on a number of secondary sources in all three languages. For a book of somewhat more than 250 pages in length there are 21 pages of bibliography. Ie, it is quite thorough.
Second, the sources are clearly footnoted over the course of the narrative. The footnotes at the back of the book are well organized and thoroughly described.
Third, Eckert makes his basic argument quite effectively. Each chapter is organized into subsections highlighted in italics. The prose is direct and not encumbered with too much jargon. When he uses Korean or Japanese language terminology, he is careful to provide English language translations. Quotations by various people are used in a way which provide context and examples of his points but without getting too bogged down in details. Additionally, there are a few helpful maps of various regions of Korea for those readers like myself who are not that familiar with the political subdivisions of the country in the years leading up to and through WWII.
Overall, Offspring is an highly informative piece of scholarship for any reader interested in a well developed, thorough, nuanced, and readable analysis of how capitalism in Korea originated during the period of colonial rule by Japan. The only modest proviso I would make is that the reader have some knowledge of the general events in Korea and Japan of this period. Otherwise, it might be a bit challenging to grasp the full extent of what Eckert so successfully communicates.
Eckert deserves high praise for exhibiting many features one likes to see in an academic approach to a topic. First, it is based on broad array of Korean, Japanese, and English language sources. These include such primary sources as government reports, newspaper articles, and correspondence between various people noted in the text. It also relies on a number of secondary sources in all three languages. For a book of somewhat more than 250 pages in length there are 21 pages of bibliography. Ie, it is quite thorough.
Second, the sources are clearly footnoted over the course of the narrative. The footnotes at the back of the book are well organized and thoroughly described.
Third, Eckert makes his basic argument quite effectively. Each chapter is organized into subsections highlighted in italics. The prose is direct and not encumbered with too much jargon. When he uses Korean or Japanese language terminology, he is careful to provide English language translations. Quotations by various people are used in a way which provide context and examples of his points but without getting too bogged down in details. Additionally, there are a few helpful maps of various regions of Korea for those readers like myself who are not that familiar with the political subdivisions of the country in the years leading up to and through WWII.
Overall, Offspring is an highly informative piece of scholarship for any reader interested in a well developed, thorough, nuanced, and readable analysis of how capitalism in Korea originated during the period of colonial rule by Japan. The only modest proviso I would make is that the reader have some knowledge of the general events in Korea and Japan of this period. Otherwise, it might be a bit challenging to grasp the full extent of what Eckert so successfully communicates.
December 6, 2009
The book is more interesting than many other works on colonial economy. It's in direct conversation with Korean scholarship -- and if you know the Korean scholarship, you'll appreciate his strong tone of: "screw the capitalist sprouts school." The overall picture is not that different from the dominant nationalist view which accuses Korean collaborators. I wish it had more conscious discussion on how we evaluate the numbers and colonial regulations -- can we directly compare the absolute numbers, if so, with what? (e.g. the number of working hours that Korean factory workers had to bear vs Japanese ones, or Indian ones?), or compare the perceptions of these realities (did particular social values make the same phenomenon more acceptable or less acceptable?)? Again, the question is, what is so "colonial" about this form of capitalism, especially if we compare this to the American factories in China now?
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews