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ix Introduction Tonghak, or Eastern Learning, was a Korean religion founded in the second half of the nineteenth century. Tonghak may also be read as “Korean Learning” because, before the twentieth century, Korean writers often referred to the Chosŏn dynasty as “the eastern country” (tongguk) in geographical relation to China. As a local religious response with national and international import, the teaching first promised spiritual and physical renewal and then culminated in an armed uprising. As believers developed a particular consciousness as a community, they posed a threat to the state monopoly on religion. In the wake of faith-based movements in China, of which the Korean dynasty was tributary, the state responded with repression, forcing movements underground. Today, the religion is best known for inspiring the eponymous 1894 Tonghak rebellion. Lasting for less than a year, the uprising made headlines in American and European papers because of its perceived threat to Western missionaries and brought Chinese and Japanese forces to Korea, sparking the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The swift Japanese intervention heralded the end of Korea’s Sinic-oriented worldview and accelerated Japan’s involvement in Northeast Asia, leading ultimately to the absorption of Korea into the Japanese Empire in 1910. For Western powers, Korea’s reliance on foreign intervention was an example of the dynasty’s inability to govern itself. The rebellion’s legacy as the “Tonghak revolution,” as it is commonly referred to in South Korea—while in the North it is best known as “the 1894 peasant war”—became a rallying cry for Korean nationalists in the twentieth century, a key element of a national identity based upon resistance to authoritarian power and foreign interference. Tonghak beliefs and politics of contestation were part of a broader nineteenth-century trend of religious revivalism. From the great revivals of the United States and Europe to new Hinduism in South Asia, peoples across the globe were turning to religion energized by charismatic leaders who empowered followers and challenged established practices. The use of religion for political activism and sometimes violence to push back against powerful military and ideological forces was a common reaction to displacements and incorporation into economic global capitalism and colonialism. In Indonesia, for example, the transformation of the x Introduction Minangkabau economy from gold to coffee export fueled a religious war in 1803 between conservative Muslims and their reform-minded counterparts , who ultimately fought Dutch colonial forces in the 1820s and 1830s. In Algeria, the claims to prophecy of a rural cleric named Bu Ziyan attracted a considerable following and led to a brief uprising against French occupation in 1849, resulting in his death. For others, religious activism involved patriotic defense against foreign militaries. Russian colonialism in parts of Central Asia resulted in armed resistance, some of which was inspired by Sufi leaders and pan-Islamic reformist movements. In 1888, Abu Jummayza claimed to be a religious prophet and headed an opposition movement against the Egyptian invasion of Sudan (Western Darfur). The brief Mormon rebellion in the Utah Territory from 1857 through 1858, when armed followers clashed with US forces, offers another example of religious-inspired political action that resulted in antistate violence. While the divergent geographical and political context underscores how religious revivalism was informed by a complex set of circumstances and local histories, it also spoke to a number of broad themes.1 Higher literacy rates, greater access to education, wider circulation of published materials, increased mobility that brought religious intellectuals into contact with new forms of knowledge and ideas, some of which were transnational in nature, defined these religious revivals.2 The language of these leaders may have found inspiration in the past, but they sought to build community in the present that would allow people living in new sociopolitical conditions to make sense of their worlds. As Ira Lapidus explains, faced with the impact of capitalism and the rising economic influence of Europe in international trade, Muslim reform movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries “turn[ed] to the past to look for inspiration for adaptation to current and future conditions.”3 Spurred by the impact of colonialism and imperialism, Muslim religious leaders in places as disparate as Central Asia and Senegal found inspiration in reform movements beyond their immediate settings, especially when local leaders traveled afar.4 In some cases, marginalized groups in India sought ways to reinforce their positions through the creation of new rituals and religious practices based on past traditions, while Islamic groups in Senegal explained...

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