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Soju: A Global History (Asian Connections)

5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

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Hyunhee Park offers the first global historical study of soju, the distinctive distilled drink of Korea. Searching for soju's origins, Park leads us into the vast, complex world of premodern Eurasia. She demonstrates how the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wove together hemispheric flows of trade, empire, scientific and technological transfer and created the conditions for the development of a singularly Korean drink. Soju's rise in Korea marked the evolution of a new material culture through ongoing interactions between the global and local and between tradition and innovation in the adaptation and localization of new technologies. Park's vivid new history shows how these cross-cultural encounters laid the foundations for the creation of a globally connected world.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

‘This is a thorough, scholarly, excellently researched study of the origins and rise of soju, Korea's distinctive distilled alcoholic drink, which extends our knowledge of food and of technology significantly, by putting the rise of soju in global context over a thousand years of history. Providing unique documentation of a beverage world otherwise almost unknown outside Korea, it is a welcome addition to global food studies.' Eugene N. Anderson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Riverside

‘Soju is a very useful addition to the field of early modern alcohol studies. The depth and breadth of the evidence is extraordinary and Hyunhee Park's easily accessible style makes the work valuable to audiences well beyond Asian specialists. Ultimately, the book may help to shift the gaze away from sixteenth-century Europe and toward early modern Asia when discussing the origins of globalization.' Gina Hames, Pacific Lutheran University

‘Hyunhee Park shows how Korea's soju arose in the global context of a Mongol world, how it developed as a local and national liquor, and how it has become global itself in a new globalization. Brilliant and interdisciplinary, the volume explores the deep and dynamic roots of a popular liquor.' Dongwon Shin, Jeonbuk National University

‘… Soju: A Global History is a study in possibilities for how to think about global history as well as how to reframe Korean and northeast Asian history therein. Foregrounding material exchange and technology as the chief lens for Korean globalisms allows not only an escape from the myopia of ethno-centric nationalism, but also a clear glimpse at the dynamic interplay of material mobilities, technological acculturation, and identity (re)formations. That dynamic at the heart of Soju is both proof of Korea’s global entanglement and a clarion to excavate the bedrock of this cultural powerhouse’s globalism.’ Aaron Molnar, International Journal of Asian Studies

‘These truly global products-both soju and this book about soju-are invaluable assets to global academia and the global community in general, including lovers of soju … the story of Soju stands to symbolize how we are all equally susceptible to the pains and pleasures of the physical world.’ Soo-Hyun Mun, Pacific Affairs

‘Those interested in premodern Korean history will find this book a welcome addition to a field that needs more studies in English. Recommended.’ M. J. Wert, Choice

‘… an impressive work that should appeal to a range of audiences … Korean historians and food studies scholars will benefit from the books ability to synthesize an eclectic range of primary and secondary sources on soju and distillation. More broadly, the book serves as an exemplary model for students of transnational history―it demonstrates how toeffectively navigate the interaction of the global and local contexts across time and space.’ H-Soz-Kult

‘There is hardly any doubt that Park’s monograph will become an essential read to anyone interested in soju, or even more broadly, the history of distilled liquors.’ Cho Wonhee, Acta Koreana

‘Park’s Soju: A Global History represents an ambitious project adroitly rendered. It follows soju and its attendant culture and technology from premodern Afro- Eurasia, throughout the Mongol empire, across the Choso˘n dynasty and Japanese colonial period, and finally to the contemporary Korean Wave. It will amply serve as an end in itself as well as a fecund point of departure for both researchers and students in a wide range of academic disciplines and historical periods.’ John M. Frankl, Seoul Journal of Korean Studies

Book Description

The first global study of the distinctive Korean soju, tracing cross-cultural exchanges and Korea's place in Eurasian history.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press (February 18, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 300 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1108842011
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1108842013
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.69 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

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Hyunhee Park
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Hyunhee Park is an Associate Professor of History at the City University of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center. A native of South Korea, Park received her BA in Asian and Western history at Seoul National University in 1997, her MA in East Asian Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2003, and her Ph.D. in history at Yale University in 2008.

As a historian living in an age when increasing globalization has many scholars looking to the future, she has kept my eyes trained on the past, looking instead to reveal globalization’s precedents through uncovering cases of cross-cultural contact in the premodern world. She specializes in the history of cross-cultural contacts in East Asia, and in the Islamic World, in Sino-Islamic contacts in particular, in the Mongol Empire, and in global history, focusing on information/knowledge transfers, including transfers of geographical knowledge, foodways, and distillation technologies.

Through her continued research employing interdisciplinary methods and a global approach, she hopes to reveal further examples of the information and technology transfers and exchanges going on between very different societies and cultures, exchanges having significant influence on people’s lives and their perception of a wider world. In this connection, she has enjoyed teaching and discussing various global phenomena and issues with her students at John Jay College in New York City. They come from wonderfully diverse backgrounds and are fully equipped with ambition, courage, and inspiration.

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2021
    Books about the history of alcohol distillation typical tell a similar story: The distillation of alcohol started in medieval Europe, and then spread to the rest of the world as Europeans started to explore and colonize all four corners of the world.

    “Soju A Global History” tells a very different story of alcohol. While the book focuses on Korea’s national liquor, Soju, it also discusses in great length the history of how distilled liquors developed and spread in East Asia independently from what was happening in Europe. Ms. Park brings to the fore numerous literary sources from East Asia (China, Korea, Japan and others) that have never been translated into English. She also discusses the fascinating role that the Mongols played in spreading cultural practices and technologies across Asia. The book is peppered with excellent drawings of distillation equipment by Matilde Grimaldi (I rarely notice the author of drawings, but not this time). Ms. Park is sometimes overly prudent in making judgements about how distilled liquors spread in East Asia, and she always entertains the possibility that distilled liquors developed independently in different areas of Asia. This prudence can sometimes confuse the reader. But overall, it is a small flaw for a book that finally gives us a piece of alcoholic history that has seldom been told.
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