"This thought-provoking study opens anew queries and debates regarding the complexities and ambiguities of the late Chosôn period and colonial history, beyond the sense of honor, righteousness, and sacrifice of a man of neo-Confucian noblesse oblige" --Journal of Asian Studies, August 2003

"[This] revisionist approach ... presents a more realistic counter-narrative of Min and the political scene between 1896 and 1905, correcting the conventional bipolarized picture of progressive Independence Club members pitted against pro-Russian conservatives." --International History Review XXV (2003)

"A very welcome approach ... a study that should attract interest not only from scholars dealing with turn-of-the-century diplomatic history, but also from a broader audience wanting to get closer to the leading personalities of late 19th century Korea." --Acta Koreana 6 (2003) (Read full review)

"Finch's study throws much light on one prominent leader's attempts to cope with the challenges facing Chosôn Korea in the moribund decades of its existence." --Pacific Affairs, Spring 2004

The diplomat and scholar-official Min Yông-hwan (1861-1905), described by one contemporary Western observer as "undoubtably the first Korean after the emperor," is best remembered in Korean historiography for his pioneering diplomacy at the courts of Tsar Nicholas II and Queen Victoria in the late 1890s. Furthermore, he is considered to be the foremost patriot of Korea's Taehan era (1897-1907). This pioneering study of Min Yông-hwan is long overdue and provides us with a new perspective on a period of Korean history that still casts its shadow over the region today.

This new biography of Min contributes substantially to our understanding of this period by looking beyond the established view of Korea as being polarized between reformists and reactionaries in the late Choson era. In doing so, it provides us with deeper insight into the full range of responses of the late Choson leadership to the dual challenges of internal stagnation and external intervention at the juncture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the recent history of Korea, late nineteenth century imperialism, and Russian, Japanese, American, and British foreign policy in northeast Asia.

Michael Finch is visiting assistant professor of Korean studies at Keimyung University in Taegu.

Read the introduction (PDF).