Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State Formation Theories

Rating:
Summary: A book having serious technical and theoretical problems
Review: I regret that this book was published by Harvard University Press because the fact shows that the publisher did not have good reviewers or proof-readers for this book. The problem of this book is:

First, it includes serious technical mistakes such as misspelling or inaccuracy of Korean names of place and event and some historical dates, which shows that there was no good proof-reading or reviewing process by Korean scholars. Yes, this book is a publication of the author's Ph D dissertation, and the author's adviser was an ancient Chinese history scholar!

Second, thus, I cannot imagine this kind of institutional relationship of academic influences was neutral in the author's opinion-formation about the history of the Korean origin. Can you imagine that an English historian is good to be an authoritative dissertation advisor of French history or even American history (especially regarding such a sensitive topic as "national origin")?

Third, I could find some serious essentialistic bias in the author's discussion, even though the author abuses in the citations of this book the names of many bigshots of so-called deconstructive or post-essentialistic theories. According to the author, most narratives of Korean history suggested by Korean historians in Korea are fakes because all of them are nationalistic. A serious prejudice. The author's assumed attitude does not seem to represent anti-nationalistic and academic objectivsity or fairness, but an Orientalistic intellectual assault blessed by the authority of writing a dissertation at an Ivy college in the US. The book just ignores decade-long local scholarship about the topic (if considering just modern one) in a very simple way without a persuasive logic or proofs. Isn't this academic imperialism?

What a convenient way of using such fashionable post-theories for concealing the lack of academic intergrity in this book! The arguments in the book seem to me like a kind of academic violence because the author uses skills of discrediting Korean scholarship just by using terms like 'nationalistic' repeatedly. It is not true.

Finally, the book has a serious contradiction because it seems to use a deconstructive way of reconstructing historical narratives, but it includes the apendices of about half of all pages of this book probably for the purpose of showing the authenticity of the author's fieldwork experience. This is a waste of pages, and such construction of the book format contradicts the author's way of narrating an alternative and fictional history.

Regretfully, I cannot help saying that this book has no value for any one who wants to look for some theoretical depth or factual discoveries in Korean history. The author's problems discussed above makes me discredit the author's arguments in the book. This book has too much serious Orientalistic biases.