Review of "Korea: a very short introduction" by Michael J. Seth

This is probably the best Very Short Introduction book I’ve read in the soft sciences (remember that Oxford University Press never does any editing). Some parts (e.g., the Japanese occupation period) were clearly cut short by the author, but it is clear he is an expert in his field and is not afraid to retain portions of the book that suggest this.

What most struck me about the book was how similar today’s North Korean regime was to the Yi Dynasty (with the exception that the Yi Dynasty had less liberation of women -which Seth points out was a major difference between the Yi and Goryeo eras). As Seth writes,

There was little social mobility and commoners were kept in their place, not only by being excluded from positions in government, but by requirements that their clothes, homes, and carts should be different from those of the aristocracy.

Neo-Confucian literati were concerned that everyone should know their rank so that order could be maintained—so much so that they developed the hop’ae system in which people wore identity tags indicating their status.

This is an even greater resemblance of political regimes than (as mentioned by Bryan Caplan) that of the Soviet Union and Imperial Russia. The strong emphasis on learning Confucian doctrine in the country under the Yi Dynasty is certainly reminiscent of the emphasis in modern day North Korea on remembering the doctrines of Kimjongilism-Kimilsungism. This is probably the greatest criticism of the ideas of Boldmug in regards to the virtues of absolute monarchy -technology is an endogenous factor.

As Korea today, premodern Korea was notable for being extreme in the extent of its foreign borrowings. As Seth says (referring to the 16th century),

in general Korean intellectual life was dominated by a dogmatic rigidness not found in contemporary China or Japan.

To some extent this rigidness must have been a result of genetic changes -had the Confucian scholars below replacement fertility rates, we would have seen as the (likely posture-induced) gradual decline of the scribal class in the Muslim world. As Seth writes,

As the state became more Confucian, the upper class became more linked to it.

Unlike today’s South Korea (but like today’s North),

Compared to China or Japan, the country was less urbanized, the merchant class smaller and less wealthy, and the volume of trade was more modest.

Above all (though Seth does not emphasize this), Yi Dynasty Korea remained starkly reminiscent of today’s North due to its seclusion from the outside world.

If there is anything more I would have liked for this book to have had, it would have been a greater description of the society and culture of today’s South Korea -it is, after all, in a state where it no longer experiences dramatic economic or political changes.

Rating: five out of five stars