William Franklin Sands In Late Choson Korea 1896 1904

This study examines William Franklin Sands, the high-ranking US advisor in the Korean government during the final years of the Choson dynasty. The author argues that his efforts to institute reform and achieve Korean neutrality were scuttled by Korean, Japanese, Russian, and US officials.

This study examines William Franklin Sands, the high-ranking US advisor in the Korean government during the final years of the Choson dynasty. The author argues that his efforts to institute reform and achieve Korean neutrality were scuttled by Korean, Japanese, Russian, and US officials.

"After graduation from Georgetown University in 1896, William Franklin Sands joined the US diplomatic corps as second secretary in Tokyo. His year there sparked his interest in East Asia, so when a position in Korea opened, he took it, with the help of his influential father, an admiral in the US navy. For two years he served under US Minister Horace Allen until a more powerful position opened as chief dviser to the Korean government in 1900. As the most influential foreign adviser, Sands attempted to convince Emperor Kojong to undertake reforms and to promote Korean neutrality to keep the country independent. The author argues, however, that Sands was hampered by corrucpt officials who had the ear of the emperor, by the Japanese and the Russians who competed for influence and who tried to replace Sands with their own advisers, and, ironically, by Horace Allen. When he lost the confidence of Kojong and when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, Sands was forced out, having failed to maintain Korea's independence as Japan moved to take over. Although his subsequent activities included other diplomatic postings, teaching, and writing, he maintained an interest in Korea and offered his services as World War Two raged"--

This book analyzes violence involving Catholics in the nineteenth-century world – revealing the motives for violence, showing the link between religious and secular grievances, and illuminating Catholic pluralism. Catholics and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Global World is the first study to systematically analyze the link between faith and violent action in modern history. Focusing on incidents involving members of the Roman Catholic Church across the globe, the book offers a kaleidoscopic overview of situations in which physical or symbolic violence attended inner-Catholic, Catholic-secular, and interreligious conflicts. Focusing especially on the role of agency, the authors explore the motives behind, perceptions of, and legitimation strategies for religion-related violence, as well as evaluating debates about conflict and discussing the role of religious leadership in violent incidents. Additionally, they illuminate the complex ways in which religious grievances interacted with secular differences and highlight the plurality of Catholic standpoints. In doing so, the book brings to light the variety of ways in which religion and violence have interacted historically. Showing that the link between faith and violence was more nuanced than theoreticians of ‘religious violence’ suggest, the book will appeal to historians, social scientists, and religious scholars.

Breaking from previous scholarship on Korean shamanism, which focuses on mansin of mainland Korea, The Shaman’s Wages offers the first in-depth study of simbang, hereditary shamans on Cheju Island off the peninsula’s southwest coast. In this engaging ethnography enriched by extensive historical research, Kyoim Yun explores the prevalent and persistent ambivalence toward practitioners, whose services have long been sought out yet derided as wasteful by anti-shaman commentators and occasionally by their clients. Intrigued by discord between simbang and their clients over fee negotiations, Yun set out to learn the deep-rooted legacy of condemning or trivializing the practitioners’ self-interests, from a neo-Confucian governor’s purge of shrines during the Chosŏn dynasty to the recent transformation of a community ritual into a practice recognized through UNESCO World Heritage status. Drawing on a wealth of firsthand observations, she shows how simbang distinguish ritual exchanges from more mundane instances of bartering, purchasing, bribing, and gift giving and explains why ritual affairs are nonetheless inevitably thorny. This original study illuminates the intertwining of religion and economy in shamanic practice on Cheju Island.

Relations between the Choson and Qing states are often cited as the prime example of the operation of the âeoetraditionalâe Chinese âeoetribute system.âe In contrast, this work contends that the motivations, tactics, and successes (and failures) of the late Qing Empire in Choson Korea mirrored those of other nineteenth-century imperialists. Between 1850 and 1910, the Qing attempted to defend its informal empire in Korea by intervening directly, not only to preserve its geopolitical position but also to promote its commercial interests. And it utilized the technology of empireâe"treaties, international law, the telegraph, steamships, and gunboats. Although the transformation of Qing-Choson diplomacy was based on modern imperialism, this work argues that it is more accurate to describe the dramatic shift in relations in terms of flexible adaptation by one of the worldâe(tm)s major empires in response to new challenges. Moreover, the new modes of Qing imperialism were a hybrid of East Asian and Western mechanisms and institutions. Through these means, the Qing Empire played a fundamental role in Koreaâe(tm)s integration into regional and global political and economic systems.

The publication of this general introduction to the art and archaeology of Korea coincides with the new permanent Korea gallery at the British Museum, promoting a wider interest in the country and its history. Aimed at a non-specialist audience, this book is readable and well illustrated. It and covers a vast time period from the Neolithic, c.6000 BC, to the present day. The remarkable culture of this country gradually unfolds through the descriptions and illustrations of Korean art, decorative objects, pottery and monuments, sculpture, crafts and ceramics.

Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.