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Donald N. ClarkDonald N. Clark
Living Dangerously in Korea: The Western Experience, 1900-1950 Paperback – 1 March 2003
by Donald N. Clark (Author)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
====
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 them 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 lives and 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 century.
===
455 pages
Language
English
Publisher
===
Product description
Review
"...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 2005 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 Kkorea.
"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 letter, 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.
Product details
Publisher : EastBridge, a nonprofit corporation (1 March 2003)
Language : English
Paperback : 455 pages
ISBN-10 : 1891936115
ISBN-13 : 978-1891936111Customer Reviews:
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
Donald N. Clark
Customer reviews
3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
5 global ratings
5 star 60%
4 star 0%
3 star 0%
2 star 40%
1 star 0%
Top reviews
Top reviews from Australia
There are 0 reviews and 0 ratings from Australia
Top reviews from other countries
Richard F. Underwood
5.0 out of 5 stars A great accountReviewed in the United States on 18 October 2011
Verified Purchase
"Living Dangerously in Korea" by Donald Clark is a well researched and very readable account of a number of outstanding non-Koreans who have lived in that abused nation in the last one hundred plus years under a fading Monarchy and Japanese colonialism and then a struggling re-birth and growth as a painfully severed victim of global jealousies. This transformation from a feudal pre-industrial society to a leading 21st century world figure, virtually in the lifetimes of two generations, was the scene of action of the remarkable characters portrayed. As one who witnessed almost 80 of those years I found this account both informative and enjoyable. For those less knowledgeable, it should provide a real insight to the lives of these self-sacrificing missionaries and the land and people they came to serve and love under changing political, financial and social conditions through the years.
Report
Haesu Maek
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable Story of Westerners in KoreaReviewed in the United States on 21 May 2020
Verified Purchase
Donald N. Clark has written a remarkable book on Westerners living in Korea roughly from 1900 to 1950. Based on papers and recollections of his family, original documents in Japanese, Korean and English, and extensive interviews with key persons over decades of research, the book provides the grounds for deepening the reader's understanding of current Korean-American relations. Despite the volume of facts presented, Clark manages to make the stories both personal and exciting. Illustrated with many historic photographs, the only lack is detailed maps of Korea with the current and historic names of the cities and locations. An excellent book for anyone interested in Korean history.
GraceRose
5.0 out of 5 stars Living DangerouslyReviewed in the United States on 2 December 2004
Verified Purchase
This book is by far one of the best, if not THE best, I've read about Korea during the first half of the 1900's. Very interesting, intriguing, and well-documented.
Report
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 them 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 lives and 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 century.
===
455 pages
Language
English
Publisher
===
Product description
Review
"...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 2005 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 Kkorea.
"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 letter, 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.
Product details
Publisher : EastBridge, a nonprofit corporation (1 March 2003)
Language : English
Paperback : 455 pages
ISBN-10 : 1891936115
ISBN-13 : 978-1891936111Customer Reviews:
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
Donald N. Clark
Customer reviews
3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
5 global ratings
5 star 60%
4 star 0%
3 star 0%
2 star 40%
1 star 0%
Top reviews
Top reviews from Australia
There are 0 reviews and 0 ratings from Australia
Top reviews from other countries
Richard F. Underwood
5.0 out of 5 stars A great accountReviewed in the United States on 18 October 2011
Verified Purchase
"Living Dangerously in Korea" by Donald Clark is a well researched and very readable account of a number of outstanding non-Koreans who have lived in that abused nation in the last one hundred plus years under a fading Monarchy and Japanese colonialism and then a struggling re-birth and growth as a painfully severed victim of global jealousies. This transformation from a feudal pre-industrial society to a leading 21st century world figure, virtually in the lifetimes of two generations, was the scene of action of the remarkable characters portrayed. As one who witnessed almost 80 of those years I found this account both informative and enjoyable. For those less knowledgeable, it should provide a real insight to the lives of these self-sacrificing missionaries and the land and people they came to serve and love under changing political, financial and social conditions through the years.
Report
Haesu Maek
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable Story of Westerners in KoreaReviewed in the United States on 21 May 2020
Verified Purchase
Donald N. Clark has written a remarkable book on Westerners living in Korea roughly from 1900 to 1950. Based on papers and recollections of his family, original documents in Japanese, Korean and English, and extensive interviews with key persons over decades of research, the book provides the grounds for deepening the reader's understanding of current Korean-American relations. Despite the volume of facts presented, Clark manages to make the stories both personal and exciting. Illustrated with many historic photographs, the only lack is detailed maps of Korea with the current and historic names of the cities and locations. An excellent book for anyone interested in Korean history.
GraceRose
5.0 out of 5 stars Living DangerouslyReviewed in the United States on 2 December 2004
Verified Purchase
This book is by far one of the best, if not THE best, I've read about Korea during the first half of the 1900's. Very interesting, intriguing, and well-documented.
Report
===
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Earl Grey Tea
663 reviews35 followers
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April 19, 2013
Suggestion for an alternative title: Living Dangerously in Korea as a Missionary (and a few other stories not directly related to Christianity).
The title of this book caught my attention when I purchased it from a used bookstore. I was hoping to learn a lot about my host country of South Korea and I learned much more than I expected.
From the title of the book I didn't expect that so much of the book would be centered around the lives of Christian missionaries in Korea. After getting through a couple of chapters and realizing that I would be reading a lot about missionaries, I finally pieced it together and realized the author was the same Donald N. Clark who is apart of the Christian missionary family 'dynasty' that has lived in Korea for a long time.
There is no doubt that Christian missionaries played a giant role in the development in modern Korea. This book covers a lot of key aspects of this and gave me plenty of insight in how Korean and Western relations developed. I do feel that at times information concerning the missionaries went too deep. I wasn't really all that interested in their summer homes on the west coast.
The parts that were about the "White Russians" (those who supported the Czar, not a white power group) that were living in Korea was quite fascinating to me. Maybe it is because I am drawn to this sort of information, or maybe it is because it was refreshing in a book almost completely about missionaries.
The most eyeopening chapter of the book was about the American military occupation of Korea after the surrender of Japan. I am now able to better understand the world that my grandfather lived in when he was stationed here in 1948. In my opinion, while the Christian missionaries help set the foundation for modern Korea and its relations with this West, these five key years after WWII seemed to be some of the most pivotal years in contemporary Korean history. I would love to read a book that dived much deeper into this subject.
Overall, I am extremely glad that I read this book. At times the book could be a bit slow and boring, but many times I was amazed by what I was learning and kept burning through the pages. I would definitely read another book by Donald N. Clark, though I will read the summary first before I dive into it.
history korea non-fiction
...more
1 like
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Martha
46 reviews
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February 1, 2008
The most entertaining and thorough way to learn history is through someone else's stories. That is what Donald Clark shows us in this narrative that chronicles what missionaries and other foreigners/ex-patriates found in first venturing into Korea in the mid- to late-1800s, when the country was truly still a "hermit kingdom." A fascinating piece of history of what is a sketchily-chronicled time. The striving of the missionaries of those times against all odds comes through in the stories. The issue of what it is like to live under an occupying power -- a very timely subject for today -- is also described through real experiences. For history buffs, particularly those of us interested in Korean modern history, this one is completely engaging.
Like
Comment
Rachel
573 reviews4 followers
Follow
August 4, 2011
A history of the European and American influence in Korea before and during the Japanese occupation.
korea
Like
Comment
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
===
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Earl Grey Tea
663 reviews35 followers
Follow
April 19, 2013
Suggestion for an alternative title: Living Dangerously in Korea as a Missionary (and a few other stories not directly related to Christianity).
The title of this book caught my attention when I purchased it from a used bookstore. I was hoping to learn a lot about my host country of South Korea and I learned much more than I expected.
From the title of the book I didn't expect that so much of the book would be centered around the lives of Christian missionaries in Korea. After getting through a couple of chapters and realizing that I would be reading a lot about missionaries, I finally pieced it together and realized the author was the same Donald N. Clark who is apart of the Christian missionary family 'dynasty' that has lived in Korea for a long time.
There is no doubt that Christian missionaries played a giant role in the development in modern Korea. This book covers a lot of key aspects of this and gave me plenty of insight in how Korean and Western relations developed. I do feel that at times information concerning the missionaries went too deep. I wasn't really all that interested in their summer homes on the west coast.
The parts that were about the "White Russians" (those who supported the Czar, not a white power group) that were living in Korea was quite fascinating to me. Maybe it is because I am drawn to this sort of information, or maybe it is because it was refreshing in a book almost completely about missionaries.
The most eyeopening chapter of the book was about the American military occupation of Korea after the surrender of Japan. I am now able to better understand the world that my grandfather lived in when he was stationed here in 1948. In my opinion, while the Christian missionaries help set the foundation for modern Korea and its relations with this West, these five key years after WWII seemed to be some of the most pivotal years in contemporary Korean history. I would love to read a book that dived much deeper into this subject.
Overall, I am extremely glad that I read this book. At times the book could be a bit slow and boring, but many times I was amazed by what I was learning and kept burning through the pages. I would definitely read another book by Donald N. Clark, though I will read the summary first before I dive into it.
history korea non-fiction
...more
1 like
Like
Comment
Martha
46 reviews
Follow
February 1, 2008
The most entertaining and thorough way to learn history is through someone else's stories. That is what Donald Clark shows us in this narrative that chronicles what missionaries and other foreigners/ex-patriates found in first venturing into Korea in the mid- to late-1800s, when the country was truly still a "hermit kingdom." A fascinating piece of history of what is a sketchily-chronicled time. The striving of the missionaries of those times against all odds comes through in the stories. The issue of what it is like to live under an occupying power -- a very timely subject for today -- is also described through real experiences. For history buffs, particularly those of us interested in Korean modern history, this one is completely engaging.
Like
Comment
Rachel
573 reviews4 followers
Follow
August 4, 2011
A history of the European and American influence in Korea before and during the Japanese occupation.
korea
Like
Comment
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
===
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