Korea: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary (review)

Before Korean studies can reach maturity, it must first have rendered into English a body of primary source material and a collection of supplementary guides and indexes. The publication of Korea: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary in 1999 is one more sign that Korean studies has in fact achieved such status. The Dictionary compiled by Keith Pratt and Richard Rutt with additional material by James Hoare—professor, priest, and diplomat, respectively—draws on the rich and diverse backgrounds of these three men to provide a bounty of information on Korea's history and culture.

In fewer than 600 pages, the Dictionary provides short descriptions of key events, personages, works of literature and music, and historical terms. Maps, charts, and illustrations supplement the text. A short introduction launches the book by establishing the basic rules of presentation followed by a detailed explanation of the McCune-Reischauer system for the romanization of Korean terms. Citations of key works follow some ?? descriptions, and a short bibliography appears at the end. Reflective of the new age of the Internet, the Dictionary also cites two web pages that provide additional bibliographic entries.

The descriptions are brief yet informative. The reader can use the Dictionary as a sound resource to clarify terms or can sit and discover at leisure nuggets of new information. Particularly well represented are the authors' individual areas of interest: music, religion, and twentieth-century political events. The Dictionary provides a delightful exploration of the history and culture of Korea.

The writers hope that the Dictionary will be useful to teachers and students, and undoubtedly it will. Nevertheless, there are a few pitfalls. Although forewarned in the introduction that the Dictionary does not adhere to strict alphabetization (so that people with the same surname can be kept together), this convention does lead to some slow starts and prolonged searches. The authors wisely chose not to differentiate between vowels shortened with a breve and those without, but they do treat aspirated consonants separately from unaspirated. This makes the Dictionary cumbersome. Individuals who are familiar with the nuances of the Korean language will have little difficulty, of course, but the new student in the field may be overwhelmed trying to remember which consonants are or are not aspirated and then to discover their location in the Dictionary.

Although there are other minor faults, none seriously detracts from the value of the work. They do, however, point to the need for more rigorous editorial scrutiny. The following is just a sample of such infelicities. On several occasions a term is rendered in its Chinese form rather than Korean. Lelang for Nangnang is a good case. Given that this dictionary may be used primarily by scholars and students of Korea, rendering it first in Korean as Nangnang would seem preferable. On page 332 the character for one hundred is used for Paektu-san instead of the character for white. The relative of Empress Ki (p. 206), listed here as Ki Chao, actually should be rendered into Korean as Ki Ch'ŏ l and correctly identified as the older brother, not the father, of the empress. The omission of a separate entry for Kim Pusik appears to be an oversight. He is mentioned in three places, however, once in bold print (p. 301). This exclusion is even more glaring given some material that is included, such as the alleged Miss Emily Brown. At times individuals are identified by their family name, at other times by their personal names; more consistency and, in fact, presenting the full name and not an abbreviated form would be the wisest course (see, for example, the Kim Ch'unch'u entry on p. 211). The early tenth-century Later Paekche leader Yi Kyŏnhwŏn is also mislabeled within the same entry as Kyŏn (p. 256-57). There are other minor quibbles, but they do not detract from the overall usefulness of the work...