뉴스레터

Professor Peter A. Lorge

I met Professor Peter A. Lorge of Vanderbilt University, who chaired the panel on the Japanese Invasions of Korea titled 'The Imjin War: Manpower, Weapon, and Logistics in Early Modern East Asia Revisited' to hear his advice on the international academic trends and the direction for studies on the Japanese Invasions of Korea in 1592. However, the interview was conducted online because the professor's visit to Korea was canceled as he was diagnosed with COVID-19. (August 11, 2022)

Professor Peter A. Lorge

Lee Jeong-il: Hello. Professor Peter Lorge! It is an honor to have an expert in pre-modern Chinese military history from European and American academics at the Northeast Asian History Foundation. Thank you again for attending the NAHF Annual Conference. Have you ever been to Korea? We would appreciate it if you could tell us your impressions of Korea.

Peter Lorge: I don't think it's a universal research topic even now. Come to think of it, I was very interested in the 『Art of War』 when I was young. I naturally became curious about Asian martial arts, which led to my interest in the history of Asian martial arts. Eventually, I became interested in military history, and it became my major.

Peter Lorge: Next year will mark the 25^th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Military History Society. Currently, about 200 members are active, and academic journals are published. Japanese military history seems to be very stagnant compared to Chinese military history. In the case of Korean military history, the Japanese Invasions of Korea of 1592 and the Korean War seem to be the hottest topics. I know that studying the Japanese Invasions of Korea of 1592 has been very difficult because only a few people specialize in this topic. I wished for opportunities to learn more about Korea's history, military history, and Korea's pre-modern history this time. It is a shame that I couldn’t make it because of COVID-19. The popularity of Korean history and culture is growing in the United States nowadays. Take my school, for instance. There is a Korean Studies program. Modern and contemporary times by period and culture by field are quite popular. One interesting thing is that Korean students in my class did not seem to know much about Korean history, especially pre-modern Korean history. Korean studies in the United States are centered on modern and contemporary Korean history. I thought it was similar in Korea. I would like to know more about Korean history before the 19^th century, namely pre-modern Korean history.

Lee Jeong-il: Like you said, knowing the history of pre-modern Korea will not only help you understand pre-modern East Asia but will also help you understand East Asia in general. Moreso if we assume that Korean history is also an essential link for interactions in East Asian history. How do you see the Japanese Invasions of Korea of 1592 from this perspective?

Peter Lorge: During the Japanese Invasions of Korea, Japan used firearms, and Joseon and Ming China also used firearms. It is discussed in my second book. As Western academia has been focusing on the powerful countries in the study of war history, including the Cold War, I think there is a tendency to put aside countries that were not powerful. I think this is wrong for two reasons. First, it is wrong to ignore countries that were not great powers. Second, the war has an aspect of interaction that has been overlooked. These errors have been repeated in the study of the Japanese Invasions of Korea of 1592 and the Korean War.

In the case of the Japanese Invasions of Korea, it seems that only China and Japan are emphasized. In other words, the research focused only on China or Japan, which is one of the fundamental errors. The same structural problem-centrism exists in Western academia. I teach a class on Western war history, and it is based on Western military history; Chinese military history is always the otherized. In terms of Western military history, I was an expert in non-Western military history. I had a habit of looking at Chinese military history that way, and I sometimes had the impression that my research was limited. I thought military history was the most open field in historical studies, but even those who study military history were often very Euro-centric.