The Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues by Kanichi Asakawa (1873-1948) – Published in 1905 – apparently a prof in the United States

The link is to the table of contents.

This is a book I read as part of a type of reading I like to do — that takes advantage of Google’s wonderful Books section — where libraries around the world are putting up their collections – and thanks to the passing of copyright dates – you can read books for free from before around 1925 or so…

I like to pick a time period or event and read up on it by reading books from that time period: in this case – The Russo-Japanese War.

This is not a period of Korean history I’ve focused on in detail before.

And this is the 3rd or 4th book I’ve read on the period this year.

Overall, the book will not be of interest to most people. You won’t regret not reading it.

But, maybe just about most K-blog readers should check out the first section – about the first 60 pages

The first short section of the book will interest people in the K-blogs, because it lays out the reasons for the Japanese colonization — from Japan’s perspective. That will be rather different from what you are used to reading in Korean history.

A quote to give the flavor of the section:

The Russo-Japanese Conflict Its Causes and Issues By Kan?ichi Asakawa, Askawa, Kan’ichi, 1873-1948

After the first section, the book goes into much boring detail about the Russian government’s activities in the Far East in relation to China – particularly Manchuria —— as it makes the case – for Japan – overall o why Japan felt it had to fight the Russo-Japanese War — which history shows was just one stage in the process of colonizing Korea and more. — Which brings up another general interest point about the book:

It is a “time capsule” — because it was written in 1905.

A date before the 1910 annexation of Korea….and so on…

The book is also of general use to those who’ve read into Korean history —- in that it spends a good bit of time placing things in a broader world-view:

Because, it spends a lot of time detailing how world powers reacted to moves by Russia – and other world powers – in pressing their advantage in China — during that period of acute weakness and possible disintegration of The Middle Kingdom that ran from the middle of the 1800s into the early 20th century.

The book really doesn’t focus much on “Korea” per se — beyond the first short section of the book explaining why Japan “had to” colonize Korea — because it was a dagger at Japan’s throat, Japan’s bursting population needed rice, Japan was going to bring Korean society into the modern world, and so on… —- and again focusing on Korea in the last chapters – by which time many readers will be bored to death ——– but the book does spend a lot of time talking about all the troubles that were going on in East Asia – and how the big power nations were involved in it – in a confusing mix of changing “power balancing” alliances and power-plays.

Of course, many of these same ‘power balancing moves” were going on between the same players outside of Asia – and eventually led to WWI – and WWII…

If you keep those ideas in mind – you might find more of this book on the Russo-Japanese War worth reading.

I honestly got bogged down around page 220 and had gotten about all the use I could find out of it…

Which is bad, because the last couple of chapters did return to a detailed look at Korea itself — and I was reading the book because of my interest in Korean history….

I’ll give an extended quote to give you a sense of the look at Korea in these concluding chapters — the quote talking about the Sino-Japanese War 1894-95

The Russo-Japanese Conflict Its Causes and Issues By Kan?ichi Asakawa, Askawa, Kan’ichi, 1873-1948

That last part about “who would not feel its necessity” is — fascinating — for a whole wide range of reasons….past and in our contemporary world….

In fact, I would recommend to K-blog readers: Read the first chapter of the book – then skip to the much later chapter Diplomatic Struggle in Korea – and read to the end – then if you feel like it – and want to see the “bigger picture” – go back and start chapter two which begins the look at Manchuria, China, and the world powers…

The later chapters on Korea get down somewhat more to the “street level” — as you can see here:

The Russo-Japanese Conflict Its Causes and Issues By Kan?ichi Asakawa, Askawa, Kan’ichi, 1873-1948

I’m sure most K-blog readers will have read something somewhere about the assassination of Queen Min – but I bet you haven’t read it quiet like that – from a pro-Japanese perspective + one coming so close in time to the events themselves – from a book written by a (Japanese) academic in 1905…

Appendix: Some pages of special interest

Count Katsura – Premier of Japan – of the infamous (and false) Taft-Katsura “Treaty”
The Russo-Japanese Conflict Its Causes and Issues By Kan?ichi Asakawa, Askawa, Kan’ichi, 1873-1948

Admiral Alexieff – Viceroy of the Far East
The Russo-Japanese Conflict Its Causes and Issues By Kan?ichi Asakawa, Askawa, Kan’ichi, 1873-1948