A Concise History of Premodern Korea: From Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century

by Michael J. Seth

Now in a fully revised and updated edition including new primary sources and illustrations, this engaging text provides a concise history of Korea from the beginning of human settlement in the region through the late nineteenth century. Michael J. Seth’s thorough chronological narrative equally emphasizes social, cultural, and political history. Students will be especially drawn to descriptions of everyday life for both elite and nonelite members of society during various historical periods. The book emphasizes how Korean history can be understood as part of an interactive sphere that includes three basic China, Japan, and the Manchurian/Central Asian region. Throughout, Seth draws comparisons between developments in Korea and those in neighboring regions. All readers looking for a balanced, knowledgeable history will be richly rewarded with this clear and cogent book.

Genres: History

316 pages, Hardcover

Published March 22, 2024

Reviews

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book. In 250 pages, it manages to cover not only the political history of Korea from the earliest period of its confirmed existance to the opening in the late 19th century - a period of almost 2,000 years! - but also various fields such as philosophy, literature, art and the structure of society, in an understandable and interesting way. It is dense, so take your time reading it, and prepare for many names per page - but don't let it discourage you: when neccesary, the author repeats himself; and instead of just listing facts, the chapters are built in a way that lets you understand the period. Especially detailed are Korea's relations with its neighbors and the various sides of its neo-confucian ideology.
Parts of the book could be better: the chapter about the three kingdom period is vague and a bit more rushed than the others; some subjects are mentioned, but not always explained (such as the the various sects of Buddhism, or the Korean Shamanism); and in whole, the book provides a complete picture only about the last third of Korea's history. It's understandable, as there is less information about early periods (almost no buildings or books before the 14th century survived), but it could be nice if the author had maybe used more of the records that were written about them in later periods, and wrote more about the archeological evidence found from those times. Pictures of the artifacts and examples of the artistic styles he refers to could also help.

[Omar Alhashimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I literally read and studied this book from cover to cover for a stupid quiz that I have tomorrow for a stupid Korean History course. So I refuse to not include it towards my 2017 reading goal because it took so much out of my time reading Way of Kings. WHO THE HELL ASSIGNS A WHOLE BOOK FOR A QUIZ..... Anyway.. The book itself is good in that it actually gives alot of detail, sometimes to an extremely ridiculous degree. However, the most annoying thing about this book is how many times it repeats information. It's like they explained what Buddhism is like 50 times. It's frustrating because in a history book you want to know what happened and move along, you dont want to read the same thing over and over again.
Anyway. Glad im done with this.

[Alex Helling · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ‘Hermit Kingdom’ or rather poetically ‘The land of morning calm’ Korea has a history that is not well known. The Korean war and history post division into North and South has some visibility but the peninsula's history before then is largely unknown in the west. Michael J Seth in his A Concise History of Premodern Korea from Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century, a not very concise name, aims to fill the gap with an introduction to Korean history. This then covers a wide sweep of history, theoretically from the mythical founding 5000 years ago but in practice it does not get going until 100BCE and there are not really many detailed records until about 500 CE. But that still leaves almost one and a half millennium of history to cover. Seth shows how Korean culture has changed over time, for example women becoming much less free over time, and how it has often been interacting as part of a wider East Asian network of culture and trade.

Pros
Concise readable introduction
Good coherent narrative

Cons
Repetitive bits

Seth writes quite well, while being academic with quite a lot of sources it is still readable and easy to take in. As a history of a country whose history is totally unfamiliar there are potentially lots of names and places that are difficult to take in but Seth is good at keeping this to a minimum and introducing who is is talking to if we encounter someone again. He has obviously been mindful that for many/most reading this book this will be their first introduction to pre-modern Korean history.

The book is chronological and despite covering around 2000 years in 250 pages it is relatively coherent. One of the problems I have found with other introductions to Korean history is the temptation to have big holes in the narrative as apparently not much is happening which I find disorientating when there is a jump of a couple of hundred years. Fortunately this does not happen here. This is in part because Seth is not just writing about the flow of political history, but is as interested in providing a primer on culture, literature, religion, and how people's lives changed over time for which the spaces between big political changes are just as important. It also therefore provides a much fuller picture of Korean society. The flipside of course is that there are limits to the depth that can be provided in a short book covering a lot of topics over a large sweep of time.

The main issue with the book is that despite the pressures of space there is repetition. Seth makes the same points, such as about not really being a ‘hermit kingdom’ several times(which I find an unconvincing argument despite the restatements). This is oddly compounded by a pretty much exact repetition of a sub chapter - which may be a printing error (though given it is not exact pages reprinted it must be before the printing/binding), or could just be laziness!

Quite good on the extras; several maps showing the peninsula in the different dynasties. There are also pictures through the book giving some idea of the architecture and art from the periods being discussed. And finally, more unusually, there are at the end of each chapter translated snippets of key sources that have been mentioned. Not certain how useful this would be to anyone reading this as an introductory book but interesting nonetheless.

I have read several introductory books to Korean history and to me this was by far the best so definitely recommend for a starter on Korean history. If you are more/as interested in the modern element there is a volume 2, and a version that has both together - I went for just vol 1 as I am most interested in pre-modern and wanted something light for carrying.