BOOKS TO HEAD ON KOREA*
by Shannon McCune
(Colgate TJhiversity)
A good start in reading about foreign areas is a "biography or novel set in
the locality. One euch hook on Korea is outstanding, Younghill Kang's autobiography of his boyhood life: The Grass Hoof. This a beautifully written account
of traditional, old Korean life and ways. Another good introduction to Korea would
he the superbly illustrated hook of the Keith sisters: Old Korea, The Land of
Morning Calm. A number of descriptive books and travelogues were published in the
era when Korea was first opened to the western world and before her independence
was lost. Of more recent date (1930) is Drake's Korea of the Japanese, a rather
personal view of life in Korea, and the account (1938) of the wildlife specimen
collector, Sten Bergman: In Korea's Wilds and Villages.
Influenced by its neighbors, Japan and especially China, Korean culture nevertheless developed independent aspects of its own. The important cultural element
of art was studied by Father Eckhardt in his History of Korean Art. Other cultural
elements are dealt with in some of the articles aeprlnted by the Korean-American
Cultural Association in The Culture of Korea.
One of the great needs is a history of Korea using modern viewpoints and
source materials. Two good histories which used Korean source materials, hut
which were colored hy the time and situation in which they were written are
Hulbertfs The History of Korea and OaIo^ A History of the Korean People. Two
recent historical studies have dealt with periods of personalities In Korea.
Neither has used Korean or Japanese language materials to any extent. Nelson's
Korea and the Old Orders in Eastern Asia concerns itself chiefly with the relation
of Korea with China and Japan during the period I876-I9IO. Harrington's God,
Msunaon and the Japanese le an excellent historical account of the career of Dr.
Horace N. Allen in Korea from 1881* to 1905* There are, naturally, many autohi-
ographies and historical accounts of missionary work In Korea. The hest piece of
scholarship was that of a Korean, Dr. L. George Paik, who wrote The History of
Protestant Missions in Korea, 1832-1910.
English language material published hy Japanese was for propaganda purposes.
It is worthwhile, however, to have their Annual Beports on Administration of
Chosen, published under varying titles hut usually with the same format.
Foreigners have published some works on the economy of Korea. By using Japanese source materials very critically, Andrew Grajdanzev arrived at an anti-Japanese view of Korean progress in Modern Korea. This ie a thorough-going summary
of Korean economy, one of the haslc hooks on Korea. The important work on agricultural conditions is that of an American-trained Korean scholar (the present
head of the Department of Agriculture in American-controlled South Korea), Hoon K.
Lee: land Utilization and Bural Economy of Korea, This hook includes material on
climate, geology, population, as well as the material noted in the title.
With the striving of Korea toward independence, many puhllcatlons, some of
them of a rather rank propaganda nature, were prepared to further the cause. It
is difficult to make choices among these works. Some of the hooks which gave
early descriptions of Korea dealt with political affairs at the time Korea was
losing its independence, 189*1-1910. The hest of these is Homer B.Hulbert fs The
Passing of Korea. Two fairly representative works which appeared at the time of
the Korean Independence movement In 1919 vere Hugh Cyan's The Behirth of Korea and
Henry Chung's The Case of Korea. During the recent war more hooks have appeared.