Category: Korea

Choice Magazine’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2007 Announced

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Each year Choice Magazine, the official publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, compiles a distinguished list of Outstanding Academic Titles. The following five UH Press books were recognized for 2007. A complete list of titles will be available in the January 2008 issue.

The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia by Barbara Watson Andaya

“Andaya has penned the definitive volume on women in early modern Southeast Asia. Graduates and undergraduates will find Andaya’s work approachable and foundational to their understanding of Southeast Asian history, society, politics, and religion. . . . Andaya’s tightly argued book is masterfully organized and is the most comprehensive book to date on women in Southeast Asia. A must read for Southeast Asianists and historians of gender and women.” —Choice, February 2007

Displacing Desire: Travel and Popular Culture in China by Beth E. Notar

“In a half-dozen penetrating chapters, anthropologist Notar examines the relationship between cultural representations and physical transformation in this superb ethnography of place. . . . Besides the valuable contribution that this book makes to the literature on representation, popular culture, and tourism, it offers fascinating insights on a growing Chinese consumer society. Highly recommended.” —Choice, October 2007

Himiko and Japan’s Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai: Archaeology, History, and Mythology by J. Edward Kidder, Jr.

“The most comprehensive and persuasive treatment in English to date of the great ancient Japanese mystery that has captured the imagination of the Japanese: the location of Yamatai and the identity of its female shaman leader, Himiko. . . . In what must be the magnum opus and capstone of his illustrious career, Kidder meticulously and thoroughly examines all historical, archaeological, and mythological materials, creating a grand synthesis. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice, October 2007

Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History
by Michael E. Robinson

“The wait for a succinct yet comprehensive history of modern Korea is over. This volume, deftly written by Michael E. Robinson, comes as a welcome alternative to histories of Korea too long or too complex for typical undergraduates. . . . Striking photographs throughout confirm this impressive volume’s status as the new standard in the field. . . . Essential.” —Choice, November 2007

The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies: Archaeological and Demographic Perspectives
edited by Patrick V. Kirch and Jean-Louis Rallu

“This collection is a seminal contribution to the longstanding concern with demographic levels and change before and following European contacts with Pacific Island societies. . . . The essays represent exemplary interdisciplinary meshings and, in developing a new level of technique for this research, remind readers of the excellence of the earlier work as well. . . . Undoubtably, this will be a basic reference in Pacific Islands scholarship. Highly recommended.” —Choice, October 2007

Buddhist Cults and the Hwaom Synthesis in Silla Korea

Posted on by stephchun

Western scholarship has hitherto described the assimilation of Buddhism in Korea in terms of the importation of Sino-Indian and Chinese intellectual schools. This has led to an overemphasis on the scholastic understanding of Buddhism and overlooked evidence of the way Buddhism was practiced “on the ground.” Domesticating the Dharma: Buddhist Cults and the Hwaom Synthesis in Silla Korea, by Richard D. McBride, II, provides a much-needed corrective to this view by presenting for the first time a descriptive analysis of the cultic practices that defined and shaped the way Buddhists in Silla Korea understood their religion from the sixth to tenth centuries. Critiquing the conventional two-tiered model of “elite” versus “popular” religion, Richard McBride demonstrates how the eminent monks, royalty, and hereditary aristocrats of Silla were the primary proponents of Buddhist cults and that rich and diverse practices spread to the common people because of their influence.

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3087-8 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Translation of an Important Commentary in the Korean Buddhist Tradition

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Wŏnhyo’s (617–686) Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra (Kŭmgang sammaegyŏng non) is one of the finest examples of a scriptural commentary ever written in the East Asian Buddhist tradition. The Exposition is the longest of Wŏnhyo’s extant works and is widely regarded as his masterpiece. In Cultivating Original Enlightenment, the first volume in The International Association of Wŏnhyo Studies’ Collected Works of Wŏnhyo series, Robert E. Buswell, Jr.’s, translation of the Exposition, the eminent Silla exegete brings to bear all the tools acquired throughout a lifetime of scholarship and meditation to the explication of a scripture that has a startling connection to the Korean Buddhist tradition.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3076-2 / $37.00 (CLOTH)

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., is co-editor of Christianity in Korea (with Timothy S. Lee),  and editor of Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Crisis in North Korea Now in Paperback

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Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956, by Andrei Lankov, is now available in paperback.

Hawai‘i Studies on Korea series, published in association with the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i
May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3207-0 / $21.00 (PAPER)

“In this important new book, the Russian-trained scholar Andrei Lankov examines the critical historical period, the mid-1950s, when the shape of the North Korean political system was formed. This book is important for two reasons—because it is the first thorough discussion of the events leading up to the effective removal of any opposition to the Kim Il Sung group, and because it uses sources which until recently were not readily accessible. . . . These sources give us a far better historical and chronological understanding of the events and players during this crucial period than we could have had before. . . . This well-written book will be of value beyond the area of Korean Studies to anyone interested in the history of communism and political systems, as well as the history of current affairs.” —Asian Affairs

Christianity in Korea Now in Paperback

Posted on by UH Press

Christianity in Korea, edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Timothy S. Lee, is now available in paperback.

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3206-3 / $24.00 (PAPER)

Here’s what reviewers said about the cloth edition.

“An impressively comprehensive overview of Korean Christianity. . . . An excellent guide—probably one of the best resources available in English—for the study of Korean Christianity.” —International Bulletin of Missionary Research

“This book’s collection of remarkable essays takes an interdisciplinary approach to clarifying the growth and development of Korean Christianity and the importance of this development for Korean politics, religion, gender issues, social issues, and interreligious dialogue. Since Western scholarship has mostly ignored this aspect of Korean history and the history of Christianity, this book makes an important contribution toward filling a void.” —Choice

Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey

Posted on by UH Press

For more than half of the twentieth century, the Korean peninsula has been divided between two hostile and competitive nation-states, each claiming to be the sole legitimate expression of the Korean nation. The division remains an unsolved problem dating to the beginnings of the Cold War and now projects the politics of that period into the twenty-first century.

Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History, by Michael E. Robinson, is designed to provide readers with the historical essentials upon which to unravel the complex politics and contemporary crises that currently exist in the East Asian region. Beginning with a description of late-nineteenth-century imperialism, Michael Robinson shows how traditional Korean political culture shaped the response of Koreans to multiple threats to their sovereignty after being opened to the world economy by Japan in the 1870s. He locates the origins of both modern nationalism and the economic and cultural modernization of Korea in the twenty years preceding the fall of the traditional state to Japanese colonialism in 1910.

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3174-5 / $19.00 (PAPER)

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