The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910 (Twentieth Century Japan: The Emergence of a World Power)

Twentieth Century Japan: The Emergence of a World Power #4

by Peter Duus

What forces were behind Japan's emergence as the first non-Western colonial power at the turn of the twentieth century? Peter Duus brings a new perspective to Meiji expansionism in this pathbreaking study of Japan's acquisition of Korea, the largest of its colonial possessions. He shows how Japan's drive for empire was part of a larger goal to become the economic, diplomatic, and strategic equal of the Western countries who had imposed a humiliating treaty settlement on the country in the 1850s.

Duus maintains that two separate but interlinked processes, one political/military and the other economic, propelled Japan's imperialism. Every attempt at increasing Japanese political influence licensed new opportunities for trade, and each new push for Japanese economic interests buttressed, and sometimes justified, further political advances. The sword was the servant of the abacus, the abacus the agent of the sword.

While suggesting that Meiji imperialism shared much with the Western colonial expansion that provided both model and context, Duus also argues that it was "backward imperialism" shaped by a sense of inferiority vis-à-vis the West. Along with his detailed diplomatic and economic history, Duus offers a unique social history that illuminates the motivations and lifestyles of the overseas Japanese of the time, as well as the views that contemporary Japanese had of themselves and their fellow Asians.

Genres: History, Japan, Nonfiction, Japanese History, Asia, Japanese Literature

508 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Peter Duus is William H. Bonsall Professor of History, Emeritus at Stanford University.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Duus documents the Japanese action and intentions in Korea from 1895-1910 from their documents and history. Korea at the turn of the century was a weak country at the crossroads, trying to play the more powerful Russians, Japanese, British, American and French diplomats and powers against each other. As Duus points out at the beginning of his work, to get a full picture from all sides a historian needs to be fluent in many languages.

Why I started this book: Living in first South Korean and then Japan it is very interesting to compare their relationship between these countries and their citizens reactions when the other is mentioned. For example, I moved to S. Korea just before the 2011 earthquake and while my other ex-pats were quick to donate to a relief fund my new Korean co-workers declined and stated that Japan deserved everything that they were getting. The Koreans have a torture museum at the jail that the Japanese used during their occupation to contain and torture political prisoners, or you know Korean nationalists. On the other side, when I mentioned the Koreans, the Japanese response was an eye-roll and "all they want is money. We've paid them and they keep coming back asking for more." Read more about the Japanese war guilt controversy.

Why I finished it: Lengthy and detailed... about the Japanese, I would love to read the Korean perspective on this time period. Time to do more research.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting view and with very detailed information and explanation on why who did what. But it feels a bit infodumpy at times.

[Zoe Collin]

Read for class

[UChicagoLaw]

This summer I am doing research in Taipei, Seoul and Tokyo. I just finished Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea 1895-1910 (California 1995), a book on Japanese colonialism. A subtext of the book is the clash of two views of the international system, a European view of international law based on formal equality of states, and an older view associated with the Chinese tributary system. China and Korea held on to the old view, to their detriment, while Japan adopted the Western view quickly and used it to perpetuate the colonial project. - Tom Ginsburg

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read one of the chapters of this book a few months ago when I was auditing a university class on Japan-Korea relations. It was so well done that, given my long standing interest in Japan, I decided to read the rest of the book.

This book demonstrated what one finds in life sometimes: an asset from one perspective can be a deficit when viewed from another. In the former sense it was extremely well researched and meticulously written in readable narrative style. Thus, Duus offered the reader a very thorough, and comprehensive analysis of the economic, political, and social factors that played out in Japan's efforts to colonize Korea from the 1870's well into the 1910's. The author described in great detail the evolution of and the struggles which went on amongst the leaders of Japan as they tried to 'civilize' their neighbors. He also reported how various Korean leaders tried to resist these efforts to take over their country.

The detail is what, in my opinion, also became the book's weakness. At times, it got to be mind numbing to follow all the political twists and turns that Duus described which went into the process of colonization. Even limiting myself to reading maybe 10 pages at a time I still got frustrated and fatigued by the time I reached the middle of the first half of the book. And I often came away knowing I could not possibly retain much of what he had communicated. As this went on I began to read some fiction as well as a way to get some relief from the intensity of this book. I finally skipped one of the later chapters completely.

To his credit, Duus acknowledged that the sources for the book did not include any Korean scholarship because he does not read that language. Thus, it is not surprising that he gave the Korean perspective the briefest of mention on only a few occasions. For those wanting to get some sense of how the indigenous peoples tried to cope with their experiences as subjects of the Japanese empire I would recommend a collection of short stories called Rat Fire, which I just recently completed reading. Written by Korean nationals it provides poignant portrayals of some aspects of their side of the story, so to speak.

Abacus/Sword is probably more appropriate for those of a scholarly bent who have the patience to wade through an in depth and highly nuanced, if not at times tedious, analysis. I would give it a 2.5 rating: its style and the fact that I ended up skipping one chapter make it less than a 3 star rating, in my opinion. Duus has written a number of other books related to Japanese history. While these might be full of a lot of useful information, I would have to prepare myself for a bit of a long slough should I decide to read one.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent so much time on this book that I might as well add it to my Goodreads list. Overall a wonderful source of information and analysis that helped my midterm, although there can be a lot of technical (economical) terminology at times that requires specialization to understand.

[Zhi Xuan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Duus wrote the most comprehensive and authoritative accounts of precolonial Joseon history that I have read. He chronicled Chinese, Japanese and Russian imperialist ambitions to carve up Korea, from the Ganghwado incident to Tokyo's formal annexation of the Peninsula.

As the book title suggests, Duus approached his inquiry systematically through two lenses—the "abacus" (which presumably represented Japan's economic penetration) and the "sword" (military power). It naturally led Duus to investigate wide-ranging issues e.g. mercantilism, concessions, gunboat diplomacy and bureaucratic reforms.

Duus examined Japanese imperialism with nuance. He shrewdly observed its metamorphic nature—imperialism evolved from an unequal treaty to concessions diplomacy to a protectorate and to colonisation. In the process, Duus contributed to the historical literature with his impressive knowledge of Japanese politics. He shied away from using umbrella terms that would have reduced the Genrō, Diet, Navy etc. to homogenous entities. Instead, he carefully dissected factional tensions in these organs to reject deterministic analysis of Japanese militarism.

Duus meticulously detailed the role of state and non-state actors from foreign countries in advancing their countries' diplomatic interests. He covered China's control of the Korean Customs Service through Resident Yuan Shikai and von Möllendorf, Russia's Bezobrazov Circle, Japan's military and conglomerates notably including the Dai-Ichi Bank etc. In many ways, the multitude of actors creates a parallel between Korea and China's party-state apparatuses active in the Belt-and-Road Initiative.

Duus' perspectives might have been Japan-centric. But it skews the focus, rather than impartiality, of his analysis. A must read to understand East Asia's convoluted history.