Korea: Its History, Its People, and Its Commerce (1910) by Angus Hamilton
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| Korea: Its History, Its People, and Its Commerce |
The Land of the Morning Calm, was, at the time of which I write, a kingdom on the extreme east of Asia, consisting of a large peninsula opposite Japan and of two lobes, a shorter one to the south-east, the other a long slice of the Asiatic seaboard north, resembhng the peninsula reversed.
In shape the country so counterparted a butterfly in flight as to impress its people’s imagination to frequent allusion to the fact in poetry and prose. It was my fortune to visit this land once and to dwell there for a winter as the guest of the Government at a time when to do so savoured of romance.
For nothing then could have been more out of the world, more like a fairy tale come true, than this secluded, cut off corner of it. In character certainly it suggested anything but a butterfly, nor had Japan then thought of capturing the country for its own collection. Dormant it had been for centuries; sleeping oblivious of the world without, in the long lethargic trance of the chrysalis.
Of this its chrysalis state, gone now never to return, I am about to speak by way of preface to this volume written by others and treating of the Korea of to-day. For a man to outlive a nation, to be able to look back upon a portion of his own existence passed amid a setting which has since crumbled away, gives him a sense of unreality and persuades him of being preternaturally old. What once he knew so well seems alien to its own .
this book i a survey of Korea written on the eve of full Japanese annexation (1910). Angus Hamilton, a British journalist and travel writer, supplies the bulk of the text; the two co-authors add specialized chapters—H. H. Austin on military and strategic matters and Count Terauchi (then Resident-General, later Governor-General) on Japanese administrative policy. The result is a blend of travelogue, history, ethnography, and contemporary political commentary.
Contents
1. Historical sketch (earliest kingdoms to the Yi dynasty)
2. Geography, climate, and natural resources
3. The Korean people: appearance, customs, language, religion
4. Government and social structure under the old monarchy
5. Commerce and trade routes (ports, treaty ports, foreign concessions)
6. Currency, weights & measures, and the beginnings of a modern economy
7. Russo-Japanese rivalry and the protectorate period (1905–1910)
8. Japanese reforms and future prospects (Terauchi’s chapter)
9. Appendices: statistical tables, chronologies, and a short bibliography
Study notes:
Hamilton Generally sympathetic to ordinary Koreans but critical of the old dynasty’s corruption and weakness; he accepts the inevitability of Japanese guidance.
-Terauchi Presents the Japanese position—modernization, legal reform, and economic integration—without acknowledging Korean nationalist resistance.
- The book therefore reflects the dominant Western and Japanese narrative of 1910: Korea as a “backward” state requiring external tutelage.
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Korea: Its History, Its People, and Its Commerce 1910)
Authors: Angus Hamilton (main), with contributions from H. H. Austin and Masatake Terauchi
Publisher: William Heinemann (London) / J. B. Lippincott (Philadelphia) – often issued as part of the “Oriental Series”