Dr John Lee john.s.lee@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor
One of the chronic problems of pre-industrial Korean history has been the difficulty of material integration between core regions of the Korean peninsula. This article analyzes five major canalization attempts made by Koryŏ and Chosŏn states in the T’aean region to address the problem of infrastructural integration. Located along a critical shipping route between the southern grain basket and the capital region, the T’aean coastline had been infamous for centuries for its treacherous tides and proclivity for hastening shipwrecks. Consequently, from 1134 to 1537, Koryŏ and Chosŏn officials attempted canalization projects that, if successful, would have allowed grain ships to bypass the most troublesome zones. However, the canalization efforts all ended in failure. Utilizing Chosŏn-era institutional records, I argue that the canalization failures: 1) exposed a preindustrial state’s logistical and technological limits, notably, the difficulty of coastal canalization efforts in areas of high tidal variation and granite bedrock, and 2) prompted shifts in the infrastructural priorities of the Chosŏn state.
Lee, J. S. (2020). The Waterlogged Limits of the Infrastructural State: The Failure of the T’aean Canalization Projects in Pre-Industrial Korea, 1134-1537. International journal of Korean history, 25(1), 15-40. https://doi.org/10.22372/ijkh.2019.25.1.15
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Feb 2, 2020 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 29, 2020 |
Publication Date | 2020 |
Deposit Date | Mar 10, 2020 |
Publicly Available Date | Apr 2, 2020 |
Journal | International journal of Korean history |
Print ISSN | 1598-2041 |
Electronic ISSN | 2508-5921 |
Publisher | Center for Korean History, Korea University |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 25 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 15-40 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.22372/ijkh.2019.25.1.15 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1275048 |
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This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and derivatives in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work is properly cited.
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