Reconstructing Ancient Korean History: The Formation of Korean-ness in the Shadow of History

This book examines the contested re-readings of “Korea” in early Chinese historical records and their influence on the formation of Korean-ness in later periods. The earliest written records on “Koreans” are found in Chinese documents produced during the Han dynasty, from the third century BCE to the third century CE. Since then, these early Chinese records have been used as primary sources for writing early Korean history in Korea, China, and Japan. This study analyzes the various reinterpretations and utilizations of these early records that became more diverse by the late nineteenth century, when the reconstruction of ancient history became a crucial part of the formation of Korean national consciousness. Korea’s modern historiography was complicated by a thirty-five year colonial experience (1910–1945) under Japan. During this period, Japanese colonial scholars attempted to depict Korean history as stagnant, heteronymous, and replete with factional strife, while Korean nationalist historians strove to construct an indigenous Korean nation in order to mobilize Koreans’ national consciousness and recover political sovereignty. While focused on Korea and Northeast Asia, the links between historiography and political ideology investigated in this study are pertinent to historians in general.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1: From Others to Barbarians: The Conceptualization and Evolution of Yi ? Chapter 2: Negotiating the Past, Reinterpreting Ancient History: Legitimacy in the Lineage of Ancient Korean History Chapter 3: Ancient History Reinvented: Another Battleground for National Prestige and Political Legitimacy Chapter 4: From a Marxist Universal History to an Ultra-Nationalist Approach: Studies on Ancient History in North Korea Chapter 5: In the Name of History: Laying Claim to the Historical Sovereignty of Manchuria (Northeast China) Conclusion: Living with the Legacy of the Past

About the Author :
Stella Xu is associate professor of history at Roanoke College.

Review :
This book provides a fascinating illustration of how history has been used and abused in attempts to frame national consciousness. Through the nuanced study of a wide spectrum of primary sources and secondary scholarship in many languages, Professor Xu reveals ubiquitous slippages from scholarly inquiry to political ideology. Although she trains her focus on the Korean case, her findings are paradigmatic. The importance of this book therefore goes far beyond the field of Northeast Asian historiography: it deserves the attention of a broad readership of historians and social scientists. This study details the background to the ‘history wars’ that regularly sweep through East Asia. In this region, the ancient past is very much alive, and matters in discourses on national identity and the geopolitics of China, the Korean states, and Japan. For the first time, this work explains what is at stake, how the arguments have taken shape in the course of history, and what we actually know about the ancient states of East Asia. It is therefore a must-read for anyone interested in the conflicts over who owns the past in East Asia, especially regarding states located in Manchuria but with strong links to the Korean peninsula, such as Puyo and Koguryo. The past is the present. Xu shows how the politics of contemporary East Asia are played out in interpreting its past and especially the early history focusing on the Korean kingdom Koguryo. She guides us through the writing of Korea’s history from the 12th century to the present and shows how important an understanding of ancient Korea is in constructing a Korean identity both in the past and the present. Reconstructing Ancient Korean History must be read by serious students and scholars of East Asia.