Rationalizing Korea: "The Rise of the Modern State, 1894-1945"
Kyung Moon Hwang
Abstract
The first book to explore the institutional, ideological, and conceptual development of the modern state on the peninsula, Rationalizing Korea analyzes the state’s relationship to five social sectors, each through a distinctive interpretive theme: economy (developmentalism), religion (secularization), education (public schooling), population (registration), and public health (disease control). Kyung Moon Hwang argues that while this formative process resulted in a more commanding and systematic state, it was also highly fragmented, socially embedded, and driven by multiple, often conflicting, ... More
The first book to explore the institutional, ideological, and conceptual development of the modern state on the peninsula, Rationalizing Korea analyzes the state’s relationship to five social sectors, each through a distinctive interpretive theme: economy (developmentalism), religion (secularization), education (public schooling), population (registration), and public health (disease control). Kyung Moon Hwang argues that while this formative process resulted in a more commanding and systematic state, it was also highly fragmented, socially embedded, and driven by multiple, often conflicting, rationalizations, including those of Confucian statecraft and legitimation. Such outcomes reflected the acute experience of imperialism, nationalism, colonialism, and other sweeping forces of the era. These particularities, in turn, placed Korea within a broader global trajectory of modern state making around the world.
Keywords:
modern Korea,
state,
society,
rationalization,
legitimacy,
colonialism,
Japanese imperialism,
governmentality,
bureaucracy
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520288317 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: September 2016 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520288317.001.0001 |
