ROUX, Pierre-Emmanuel, La Croix, la baleine et le canon. La France face à la Corée au milieu du XIXe siècle, Paris, Editions du Cerf, 2012, 462 p
Journal Title: International Journal of Korean History - Year 2016, Vol 21, Issue 2
Abstract
The present volume is an extended version of the author’s master’s thesis submitted to the Institut national de langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) in Paris in 2007. It sets out to reinterpret the Franco-Korean connections from the 1840s to the 1860s. As the author explains in the introduction, the historiography of early Franco-Korean relations suffered from a too narrow focus on the expedition of 1866 as well as on the role of Korean Catholicism. Moreover, the early relations between France and Korea were largely asymmetrical. Whereas Korea played only a minor role for France and the history of the early contacts between both countries is only known to a small community of French specialists, the situation is completely different for Korea. The author underlines the relevance of early Franco-Korean contacts for Koreans with a personal anecdote in the preface, when he recounts the first encounter with his future father-in-law in Daejeon in 2002. On this occasion, the latter accused the author of belonging to a nation that invaded Korea in 1866. The monograph is based on an impressive variety of hitherto unexploited documents from diverse countries, most importantly French diplomatic sources.
Authors and Affiliations
Klaus Dittrich
Keywords
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- EP ID EP26441
- DOI https://doi.org/10.22372/ijkh.2016.08.21.2.187
- Views 328
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