The Korean Empire
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Korea’s brief but significant period as an empire as it moved from the 500-year-old dynastic Joseon monarchy towards modernity. It was in October 1897 that King Gojong declared himself Emperor, seizing his chance when the once-dominant China lost to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. The king wanted to have the same status as the neighbouring Russian, Chinese and Japanese Emperors, to shore up a bid for Korean independence and sovereignty when the world’s major powers either wanted to open Korea up to trade or to colonise it. The Korean Empire lasted only thirteen years, yet it was a time of great transformation for this state and the whole region with lasting consequences in the next century…
→ Listen on BBC Sounds website
Guests
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Nuri Kim No other episodes
Associate Professor in Korean Studies at the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson College -
Holly Stephens No other episodes
Lecturer in Japanese and Korean Studies at the University of Edinburgh -
Derek Kramer No other episodes
Lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield
Reading list
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Korea and her Neighbors: A Narrative of Travel, With an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country
Isabella Bird Bishop (Forgotten Books, 2019) -
Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club
Vipan Chandra (University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1988) -
The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1859-1910
Peter Duus (University of California Press, 1995) Google Books → -
Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876-1910
Carter J. Eckert (University of Washington Press, 1991) Google Books → -
Salvation through Dissent: Tonghak Heterodoxy and Early Modern Korea
George L. Kallander (University of Hawaii Press, 2013) Google Books → -
Reform and Modernity in the Taehan Empire
Kim Dong-no, John B. Duncan and Kim Do-hyung (eds.) (Jimoondang, 2006) -
Tradition, Treaties, and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Choson Korea, 1850-1910
Kirk W. Larsen (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008) Google Books → -
Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896-1910
Yumi Moon (Cornell University Press, 2013) Google Books → -
The Making of Korean Christianity: Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915
Sung-Deuk Oak (Baylor University Press, 2013) Google Books → -
A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tokhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea
Eugene T. Park (Stanford University Press, 2020) -
Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History
Michael E. Robinson (University of Hawaii Press, 2007) Google Books → -
Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919
Andre Schmid (Columbia University Press, 2002) Google Books → -
Social Darwinism and Nationalism in Korea: The Beginnings, 1880s-1910s
Vladimir Tikhonov (Brill, 2010) Google Books →
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Programme ID: m002bj6d
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002bj6d
Auto-category: 951.9 (History of Korea)