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James Palais
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The Korean version of "Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions," a work by historian James Palais, was published by Sancheoreom in two volumes on Monday. Palais (1934-2000) was a professor at the University of Washington and dean of international studies at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.
The book, first published in English in 1996, caused heated debate among academics at the time by speaking of the two Korean dynasties, Koryo and Chosun, which lasted from the 11th century until the mid-18th century, as slave societies where the ratio of servants exceeded 30 percent.
Palais also challenged the patriotic theory of ¡°indigenous development,¡± which holds that it was the development of capitalism in the late Chosun period that led to the modernization of Korea, as opposed to Japanese colonial rule or Western influence.
Palais had a Ph.D. from Harvard University for a thesis on regent Daewon-gun, the father of King Gojong, and taught leading American scholars of Korea such as Carter Eckert, John Duncan, and Bruce Cumings.
The controversial book is more than 1,500 pages long in the Korean version and was translated by Dr. Kim Bum, a researcher at the National Institute of Korean History. He said while it was true that Palais held such views, ¡°he focuses on quite a different point."
Kim said the book is a comprehensive analysis of the politics, economy and society of the late Chosun period based on the "Bangye Surok (The Jottings of Bangye),¡± a historic text that deals with a realist scholar's plan for a revived and reformed Korean system of government in the era. Bangye was the pen name of the scholar Yu Hyong-won (1622-1673).
Kim said Palais' book ¡°is a very important text based on exhaustive analysis of huge amounts of historical records. The problem is that many parts of the book invited negative interpretations because he uses excessively strict and rigid standards."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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