Living Dangerously in Korea
The Western Experience, 1900–1950
Donald N. Clark
March 2003 | 472 pages
$24.99 (paperback) | ISBN
978-1-910736-69-2
$44.99 (hardback) | ISBN
978-1-910736-70-8
Korea was “discovered” by the West after World War II when it became a flashpoint in the Cold War. Before the war, however, it was home to many hundreds of Westerners who experienced life there under Japanese colonial rule. These included missionaries who opened Korea as a field for evangelism, education, and medicine; speculators who risked much and reaped riches from mining concessions; and diplomats who tried to keep these foreign residents neutral, even as the Japanese forced them out of business on the eve of the Pacific War.
In the first part of the book, the author reconstructs the foreign community and highlights the role of Americans in particular as participants in Korean history, bringing vividly to life the suffering and triumphs of the expatriate community in Korea, especially the missionaries. In the second part of the book, the author presents the altered circumstances of American military occupation after 1945 and the consequences of the Americans assuming a role not unlike the one that had been played earlier by the colonial Japanese.
By telling the lives and experiences of Westerners, the author highlights the major historical events of modern Korean history. Accounts of foreigners in the Independence Movement and during the period of militarization in the 1930s shed new light on what Japanese colonial rule meant to the Korean people. Similarly, Western experiences in Korea in the 1940s amount to a commentary on the way Korea was divided and the events that led inexorably to the ordeal of the Korean War.
The stories recounted in this extraordinary book, highlighted by more than sixty photographs, are a valuable commentary on Korea’s early modernization and the consequences of the Korean War as it set the stage for Korea’s relations with the world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Praise
“…a fascinating account of a small but very diversified community…and now, in this readable and enjoyable book, we have a good reconstruction of that lost world.”
—Asian Affairs Jul 2004 (J.E. Hoare, Royal Society for Asian Affairs)
“Clark thouroughly excavates a wealth of primary sources to provide an extraordinary monograph about Westerners and their arduous experience in Korea from the turn of the 20th century ’til the eve of the Korean War in 1950.
“Clark illuminates major historical events of modern Korea as seen through foreign eyes, and narrates Western resident’s tacit assistance to the underground Korean nationalist movement. He explains the influence of colonial rule on the Korean people, Western experience in a divided Korea after WWII, and the dynamics of the Korean War’s eruption. With original in-depth analysis, this book offers an unusual addition to the Western litereature of modern Korea.
“Summing up: Highly recommended. All libraries and readers.”
In 2004 Choice named Living Dangerously in Korea an Outstanding Academic Title.
—Choice April 2004 V41.08 (G. Zheng, Angelo State University)
“Donald Clark has written an engaging account of the small number of Westerners who lived and worked in Korea during the turbulent first half of the twentieth century.
“A previous knowledge of Korean history … is not necessary to appreciate this book. The book’s wealth of anecdotes and vignettes will enrich anyone’s understanding of Korea.
“Clark’s vast knowledge and familiarity with modern Korea and with the Western community is apparent. We are reading the distillation of a lifetime of study informed by his upbringing as a ‘Korea Kid’.
“This book should be accessible to most undergraduate students and should be on the reading list of anyone with an interest in modern Korean history or the story of Westerners and Asia.”
—Education about ASIA, Winter 2003 V8.3 (Michael J. Selth, James Madison University)
“Dr. Clark has written a most valuable book that all those interested in modern Korean history and in Korea’s international relations will find rewarding for its insights into the nature of Korea during a tumultuous half-century.”
—Pacific Affairs V77.2 (A. Hamish Ion, Royal Military College of Canada)
“It is a captivating account made more so by Clark’s superb use of primary source material in the form of letters, journals, and interviews by and of the missionaries themselves. The reader is privy to the fascinating (and often humourous) lesser details of missionary work.
“No one who studies modern Korean history can afford to neglect this valuable study of the Protestant missionary experience in Korea.”
—Korean Studies V28 (Daniel C. Kane, University of Hawaii)
About the Author
Donald N. Clark is Professor of History at Trinity University in Texas. He grew up in Seoul, earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University, and has often returned to Korea. His publications include Christianity in Modern Korea, Culture and Customs in Korea, and a section in the Cambridge University History of China.
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