By Michael Finch
The diplomat and scholar-official Min Yông-hwan (1861-1905), defined via one modern Western observer as "undoubtably the 1st Korean after the emperor," is better remembered in Korean historiography for his pioneering international relations on the courts of Tsar Nicholas II and Queen Victoria within the overdue Nineties. in addition, he's thought of to be the major patriot of Korea's Taehan period (1897-1907). This pioneering research of Min Yông-hwan is lengthy late and gives us with a brand new standpoint on a interval of Korean background that also casts its shadow over the area today.
This new biography of Min contributes considerably to our figuring out of this era via having a look past the confirmed view of Korea as being polarized among reformists and reactionaries within the overdue Choson period. In doing so, it offers us with deeper perception into the entire diversity of responses of the past due Choson management to the twin demanding situations of inner stagnation and exterior intervention on the juncture of the 19th and 20th centuries. will probably be crucial studying for somebody attracted to the hot historical past of Korea, past due 19th century imperialism, and Russian, jap, American, and British international coverage in northeast Asia.
Read or Download Min Yong-Hwan: A Political Biography (Hawaii Studies on Korea) PDF
Similar leaders & notable people books
A Sketch of the Life and Labors of George Whitefield
“A comic strip of the existence and Labors of George Whitefield,” through J. C. Ryle, presents a caricature of Whitefield’s instances, lifestyles, faith, preaching, and paintings. Whitefield used to be an English Anglican priest who helped unfold the good Awakening in Britain, and particularly within the British North American colonies. He turned probably the best-known preacher in Britain and the USA within the 18th century, and, simply because he traveled via all the American colonies and drew nice crowds and media insurance, he was once the most well known public figures in colonial the USA.
He used to be one in every of America's maximum presidents and definitely our such a lot colourful. Theodore Roosevelt, identified to all yet his buddies as Teddy, was once born a sickly baby yet reworked himself into an outdoorsman, a cowboy, and a warrior who led his tough Riders up the San Juan Heights of Cuba in a cost that also ranks one of the world's army legends.
Battle ready : memoir of a SEAL warrior medic
A memoir from a SEAL and medic within which he explores his 25-year occupation in harmful strive against missions and the post-traumatic pressure ailment that built at domestic. summary: From the pains of BUD/S education to the horrors of the battlefield, this name immerses the reader within the lifetime of the elite warrior-medic who advances into wrestle with life-saving apparatus in a single hand and life-taking guns within the different.
- Abraham Lincoln, à l'origine de la guerre de Sécession: Un combat contre l’esclavage (French Edition)
- The Wars of the Roses
- Surrounded by Dangers of all Kinds: The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Theodore Laidley (War & the Southwest)
- Sir Robert Peel
- Crowbar Governor: The Life and Times of Morgan Gardner Bulkeley (Driftless Connecticut)
- Inside Story: Politics, Intrigue and Treachery from Thatcher to Brexit
Additional info for Min Yong-Hwan: A Political Biography (Hawaii Studies on Korea)
Sample text
In 1876 after the conclusion of the Treaty of Kanghwa, Kim Ki-su was sent to Japan as a special envoy. Kim recorded his observations in Iltong kiyu (Record of a journey to Japan), which was presented to King Kojong on his return to Seoul. As an intimate of the royal family, Min Yông-hwan probably had access to this and subsequent journals of Korean envoys to Japan and the West. Kim Ki-su’s early assessment of the Japanese model, however, was highly critical. 20 early life and political career Four years later, in 1880, Kim Hong-jip, who was later one of the leading figures in the Kabo-Vlmi reforms (Kabo kyôngjang) of 1894–1845, was sent as an envoy to Japan and, unlike his predecessor Kim Ki-su, returned with the conviction that Korea should emulate Japan and embark on an urgent program of modernization and reform.
2 As internal evidence for this assertion he notes that in the first section of Ch’ônilch’aek, “Siseji cheil wal” (First statement on the current state of a¤airs), Min mentioned that the Trans-Siberian Railway had not yet been completed. This means that the essay must have been written before 1898. In addition Kang maintains that in “Piôji chesip wal” (Tenth proposal for preparation and defense) Min claimed that Korea had thoroughly divested itself of its subordinate relationship to China and also recommended that China, Japan, and Russia should be played o¤ against each other.
124 He soon o¤ered his resignation, but he was ordered to remain in the post. In the following month he presented a memorial requesting punishment for a mistake he had made concerning the supervision of the Capital Garrison Cavalry (Kûmwiyông kisa), one of the five garrisons in Seoul. This memorial may have been a genuine expression of contrition, but it appears to have been a more indirect way of requesting to be relieved of o‹ce. 126 From about this time, however, Min appears to have begun to su¤er quite seriously from bad health as this became one of the major reasons he cited for his unsuitability for o‹ce.