□ The ICAS Book Prize 2021: The biennial ICAS Book Prize (IBP) was established by ICAS in 2003 to bring a focus to academic publications on Asia, to increase their worldwide visibility and to encourage a further interest in the world of Asian Studies. The IBP is awarded to outstanding publications in the field of Asian Studies. Organised every two years, together with the ICAS conference, the IBP has grown from a small experiment to the leading Book Prize in the field of Asian Studies. Starting in 2017, so as to reflect ICAS’ decentralising approach, the IBP now also honours publications, in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish (in addition to the original English edition).
□ The IBP 2021 (Korean Language Edition) winner is Professor Park Hun of Seoul National University, Dept. Asian Studies. The awarded books is The Meiji Revolution and the Emergence of the Political Culture of the Literati (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 2020).
□ Book Description: Modern historical studies were oriented toward Europe only, and non-European regions including Asia were represented as ahistorical. The success of the Meiji Revolution was a challenge against the idea of history that supported the modern world. Yet modernist history retained its idea of history with the ‘leaving Asia’ ideology, arguing that Japan is not part of Asia. By seeking out the embryo of capitalism or modernity from Edo-period Japan, modernist history sutured the ruptures that the Meiji Revolution made in world history. The author challenges squarely the traditional interpretation that explains the Meiji Revolution as a result of the modernist embryo and the shock of the West combined. By focusing on Confucianism, the common ideological resource of East Asia, the book illuminates how the spread of the ‘political culture of the literati’ in the Edo period prepared for the modernity of the Meiji Revolution. Unlike Joseon or China, the scholarly Confucian vision of samurai was the key driver of the Meiji Revolution. The book analyzes the ‘scholarly network’ of the samurai and the politics of public opinions including sending letters to illustrate the ‘political culture of the literati’. The author looked beyond the abstract and linear historical perspective that only saw either Japan or the world, straight at the historical world of East Asia. This monograph is a monumental achievement of Korea’s tradition of studies in Asian history.