Kenneth Swope’s new book on the Bunroku/Keicho No Eki (the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597) carries the title of another Japanese name for the conflict: “A Dragon’s Head and A Serpent’s Tail”, referring to something that has an impressive beginning but no real end. It’s an inspired title, easily the best among English language books on the war (if only because Stephen Turnbull’s publishers nixed the ‘Hunting the Tiger’ title Turnbull had originally planned for ‘Samurai Invasion’). In homage to Swope’s articles that have a ‘dual’ title (such as ‘Yi Said, Li Said’ or ‘Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons’) we’ve went the same route and called this review ‘Superior Title, Inferior Book’. Disappointingly, the book has failed to even begin to live up to the expectations many had for it when Swope promoted it in his critiques of other English language books on the war. It’s a work written with no small amount of bias and many errors of fact and interpretation.
For the most part, one cannot fault Swope for a poor research ethic. There are fully 26 pages of works citied as sources, providing many excellent avenues of study for readers. As will be discussed later, the preponderance of Chinese sources works against it to a degree. For his Japanese sources, Swope relies too heavily on gunkimono (Japanese war tales, mixing fiction with reality and usually greatly exaggerated). He states that Chinese and Korean sources address supply, intelligence, and planning far more than Japanese accounts which stress the exploits of individual warriors. This is a direct result of relying on gunkimono-had Swope sought out
letters and reports used by individual daimyo, he would have found them
to be much the same as the reports of their mainland Asian foes. In another example, Swope uses as a source “Matsura Hoin Seikan Nikki”, a gunkimono written by descendants of Matsura Shigenobu (one of Konishi Yukinaga’s sub-commanders in the 1st Division). Here, Swope states “When he finally arrived at Nagoya, Hideyoshi stoked the troops’ battle lust with another bombastic speech…At the sound of a gong, the sails fluttered, and the vessels launched in unison, firing flaming arrows into the sky to mark their departure”. Well, obviously Swope is here using pejorative language when describing the Japanese (something he does throughout the book-more on that later), but that’s not the point. The point is that Hideyoshi was nowhere near Nagoya when the Matsura and the invasion force departed. Letters and other contemporary documents show he was still well over a week away. The “Matsura Hoin” was a history put together almost 300 years after the fact. It was written to not only play to the extreme anti-Korean sentiment of the Meiji era, but also to link the Matsura family with Hideyoshi (whose reputation was once again in favor during the Meiji period, both as a symbol of anti-Tokugawa rule and for his invasions of Korea). But again, Swope’s reliance on and inability to evaluate gunkimono (and using Meiji period gunkimono on top of that) results in presenting fantasy as fact. These contemporary letters and reports are harder to find than Korean or especially Chinese ones-matters of war were largely left up to individual daimyo rather than filtered through a bureaucracy and ending up in one place. Hence, the most reliable Japanese records tend to be scattered throughout museums, temples, and individual collections-but they’re out there and would have made far better sources.
Swope also uses secondary sources such as James Murdoch’s “A History of Japan” or George Sansom’s “A History of Japan” for descriptions and background. These works are considered outdated by the Japanese historical community and (in Murdoch’s case) largely of only historiographical use. Swope also curiously addresses sources and issues that haven’t been advanced by academia for many years-most notably the claim that the Japanese lost the war only due to the death of Hideyoshi, something that no scholar has seriously considered for years. Does anyone else consider Sansom a ‘modern’ writer? Despite all this, Swope has certainly done his homework and brought quite a bit of material to the table.
However, research is only the beginning-how it is used and interpreted is by far the most important part of the academic equation. Swope falls well short in this aspect, making the evidence fit his foredrawn conclusion (that the Ming army was a highly advanced and capable war machine that was the primary cause of the Japanese defeat) rather than let the facts lead him to one. While he examines Japanese sources with a critical eye (as well he should), this rarely extends to Ming sources which are almost always accepted at face value. Given the fact that Ming battle reports and memorials are well known to be every bit as self-serving and exaggerated as Japanese records (illustrated in his text by lies that were so huge, even the Chinese felt the need to investigate them), his faith in them is rather unwarranted. Swope further ‘gilds the lily’ by his choices of language and presentation when dealing with either side. For example, Swope writes about two different sieges-both situations where the defenders were sorely outnumbered and bereft of supplies, but in one case being the Chinese and the other the Japanese. Of the Chinese defenders of Namwon Swope writes “The overmatched defenders somehow managed to hold out against incredible odds for four days”, but the Japanese defenders of Ulsan are dismissed as “crumbling and they were on the verge of capitulating”. One would never suspect that the Chinese were routed by the Japanese in both battles. Among other superlatives, the Ming are routinely described by Swope as ‘heroic’, ‘superior’, ‘valiant’, ‘crushing’, and seemingly possessing nothing but ‘crack troops’. This type of wordplay glorifying the Ming and downplaying the Japanese (and also the Ming’s Korean allies) unfortunately infests the book and works to undermine Swope’s credibility. Swope states that the 2nd invasion “might have been avoided entirely had it not been for the pride of Hideyoshi and Sonjo, both of whom were too stubborn to yield to their rival.” Including Hideyoshi is completely justified. But not only was Sonjo completely left out of the peace negotiations, Swope ignores the fact that it was Ming inflexibility and pride combined with Hideyoshi’s that led to the second Japanese assault. The Ming are given virtually all the credit for the defeat of the Japanese forces in Korea-even though the Japanese were already defeated by the time the Ming found time to aid the Koreans. The Korean navy in concert with the Korean Righteous Armies and guerillas had strangled Japanese supply lines, stopped the Japanese assault, confined it to a narrow corridor, and begun to chip away at Japanese gains. Combined with some of the roughest terrain on Earth, the harsh Korean winter, and rampant disease, the Japanese defeat was just a matter of time. While there is no doubt the Ming numbers and presence sped up this process, to give them the lion’s share of the victory is a dubious proposition (especially since, outside of Chiksan, they were routinely defeated by the Japanese in most land engagements and performed poorly in those they managed to win, such as at Pyongyang).
The book leaves itself open to virtually all the criticism Swope leveled at other books dealing with the Bunroku/Keicho No Eki-these being primarily Stephen Turnbull’s “Samurai Invasion” and Samuel Hawley’s “The Imjin War”. Swope calls both Turnbull and Hawley to task for writing from an isolated perspective (Turnbull from the Japanese, Hawley from the Korean) and chastises them for using primarily Japanese and Korean sources. However, Swope comes right out and admits his work is written “primarily from the Ming perspective and relies far more on Chinese sources than those produced by Koreans and Japanese”. Further, while neither Turnbull nor Hawley seem to have a nationalistic agenda in mind, as discussed above it appears that Swope does. Turnbull is accused of “glossing over Japanese atrocities by blaming them on ‘lesser soldiers not in the first rank of samurai heroes.’” Swope does the same thing with Ming atrocities against their Korean allies, admitting to misconduct by the lower ranks but emphasizing (largely unconvincingly) that officers attempted to keep these under control. It's rather difficult to believe Ming officers weren't heavily involved with atrocities against the Koreans when the heads they presented to their superiors as trophies often included those of Korean peasant women. One can visualize a sheepish Ming officer mumbling "Gee, how'd THAT get in there?". And finally, in the course of a particularly vicious review left on Amazon for Hawley’s ‘Imjin War’, Swope calls Hawley’s book “little more than a basic narrative”. Swope admits his book is “to present a narrative of The First Great East Asian War for the broader community of military historians.” Turnbull and Hawley, meet the pot to your kettles.
Based on the text, it seems Swope has little more than a basic understanding of Japanese history. The book has a liberal dose of errors to confirm this, including small ones (such as stating that Akechi Mitsuhide forced Oda Nobunaga to commit seppuku, when in fact no one knows for certain how Nobunaga died) and medium sized ones (such as stating that Hideyori was Hideyoshi’s first son-he was actually his second, and the death of Hideyoshi’s first son was a major factor in the Taiko’s fawning upon Hideyori). There are larger errors as well, such as Swope claiming that Neo-Confucianism was introduced to Japan by Korean scholars kidnapped in the course of the war. By that time Neo-Confucianism had been around Japan for centuries (since the early Kamakura period, 1185-1333) with members of the Imperial Court such as the Fujiwara and other Japanese scholars of Chinese culture holding forth on it for the edification of various nobles and daimyo. However, it manifests itself most prominently in Swope’s apparent lack of knowledge of Japanese battle tactics. Time and time again we are told that the Japanese altered their tactics out of fear of the Ming army and the might of their artillery. For example, Swope states that “The Battle Of Pyongyang convinced them (the Japanese) that they could not go head to head with the Ming when the latter could bring their big guns to bear…For the rest of the war, the Japanese preferred to use ambushes and hit-and-run tactics against the Chinese.” He goes on to state that in response to Chinese artillery the Japanese preferred to fight from fortified positions. This was nothing new-the Japanese had been fighting this way for years and these tactics were in no way adopted in response to the Ming army. Ambushes, hit-and-run attacks with mounted archers, and surprise attacks had long been a favored weapon in the Japanese arsenal (dating back to at least the gunkimono of the 10th century). Preferring to fight from defensive positions also goes back that far, and became increasingly prevalent in response to the increasingly large number of firearms being used in the later years of the Sengoku. After Nagashino proved the strength of a well thought out defensive position manned with gunners (even as few as 1000 or less, according to some accounts), Japanese warfare increasingly had become a contest to see who could lure who out of their fortifications first. The defensive mentality of the Japanese is illustrated by the fact that at Pyongyang they fought from a fortified, defensive position-BEFORE they had encountered the supposed might of Ming artillery (and rendering Swope’s argument invalid). Their approach remained roughly the same throughout the war-the only real difference between Pyongyang and Ulsan or Sachon is that the Japanese were using Korean fortifications in the former, and their own better designed and more effective structures in the latter. Swope would have been well served to have had a scholar well versed in Japanese history read his manuscript before publication-many of these errors and misconceptions could have been prevented. This underlines one of the major roadblocks to a ‘definitive’ history of the Korean Invasions-it would be difficult to find a scholar with outstanding knowledge of the history of the three major parties. To date, the three major works have all been written from the perspective of one or the other.
Nomenclature also seems to be a problem for the book. Swope states that the Shimazu wajou (a Japanese-style castle built in Korea) on Cheju Island (containing 2000 men) had 105 artillery pieces. Yes, 105. It would make for an interesting study to see if there existed 105 pieces of what is traditionally considered artillery (a mounted gun, either in an emplacement or carriage) across the whole of Japan in 1593, much less in a small coastal fort staffed by only 2000 men in Korea. Instead, it appears that only one of the guns would be properly considered artillery (and was most likely a captured Korean gun at that) with the rest being the heavier gauge arquebus that many Japanese units had (and that were occasionally fired from improvised emplacements). This calls into question whether the figures given for Ming artillery use the same rather loose definition.
Problems extend to all facets of the book, ranging from largely useless maps to poorly-formatted endnotes. Most of the maps only show city locations, not troop movements, and the couple that do so look (quite) a bit like maps seen in Turnbull’s book. The maps are poorly coordinated with the text-there are plenty of locations and names plotted that are not mentioned in the text, but many that do appear in the text aren’t noted on the maps. Names used on the maps do not always match with the ones used by Swope (one would presume they’re using different methods of Romanization). Dates used on the maps differ from the text, one appearing to use the Chinese calendar and the other the Western calendar. There are also several maps of China proper that have little to do with the Korean conflict. Swope uses endnotes rather than the more scholarly footnotes, making it inconvenient to check and note sources. He also uses ‘block endnotes’-every citation within a paragraph is listed in a combined entry, at times making it difficult to tell which source a quote or statistic is coming from. Many times facts pertinent to a discussion are hidden this way, such as a Chinese account of a Japanese envoy telling them that Oda Nobunaga had slain the King Of Japan (Swope correctly states this as being false in the endnotes, but would have been better served doing so in the text). There are also the inevitable typos and grammar errors that work their way into any work of this size-for example, Song Yingchang (Ming military commissioner of Korea in 1592-1593) is spelled Sang Yingchang on page 301. And while not an error per se, the use of anachronistic words such as ‘blitzkrieg’ and ‘kulturepolitik’ in referring to the conflict does seem more in keeping with a popular rather than a scholarly account. Style wise, Swope repeats certain words and phrases over and over…and over and over and over. Some of these include ‘superior’, ‘crushed’, ‘heroic’, ‘crack troops’, and ‘rained bullets’. The book has also been criticized for reading like a chapter of a biography of the Wanli Emperor rather than an account of the Korean invasions.
Swope at times even mangles Chinese and Korean history. He states that Chinese commander Song Yingchang led troops into battle at Pyongyang. According to the "Ming Shi" (History Of The Ming) as well as Song's own letters, Song at no time was present in Korea. Swope is inconsistent with his Romanization of Korean proper and place names. He also seems to have 'picked and choosed' his Korean sources with an eye on glorifying the Ming-for example, he heavily leans on "Record Of A Rebuilt Tributary State", written by a Korean author who was known to have sung the praises of the Ming more than any other contemporary. But well known Korean sources that were critical of the Ming such as "Veritable Records Of The Choson Dynasty" are never mentioned, let alone used. This further points to only the evidence that supports his central thesis being presented.
This isn’t to say that the book is completely without merit. It does give some interesting insights into the bureaucracy of the Ming and their methods for raising, supplying, and deploying troops. It paints an excellent picture of the difficulties involved in fielding and transporting armies of this era in Asian history and the massive effect that supply had on strategy-an aspect of warfare that is too often passed over and downplayed in many histories. The overwhelming bureaucracy of the Ming and the involvement of civilian officials in warfare goes a long way towards explaining the substandard performance of the Ming army during the course of the conflict. When combined with the constant arguing with their Korean allies, it’s a miracle they were able to accomplish anything at all. Swope also takes some of the shine off the legend of Korean Admiral Yi, something which was sorely needed in English language treatments of the war. While Yi was indeed a major factor in the conflict and a master motivator who maximized the huge advantage his ships and armaments gave him, there’s little question his role has been glorified and overblown. Swope gives concrete examples where the legend did not quite match up with reality. There's a handy list of figures playing a part in the conflict with a short description of the part they played or office they held. Swope has a seven page listing of Chinese characters for many of the place and proper names used in the text, a great aid for those searching for more information and far preferable to including them piecemeal in the text (although it's touched by the error bug too, as when Mouri Hidemoto's name is given an additional spurious kanji character).
As is, “A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail” forms the weakest corner of a triangle comprised also of Turnbull’s “Samurai Invasion” and Hawley’s “The Imjin War”. Perhaps those enamored of the Wanli Emperor and convinced of the incredible fighting prowess of the Ming will find it a ‘must-have’-but in Swope’s words (if not his context), “Those seeking a serious and nuanced understanding of this conflict should best look elsewhere.” We found it a major disappointment-a biased and largely uncritical book with little to add that had not already been said by Turnbull or Hawley. The lack of new information is particularly galling in the light of Swope’s promises and hints that his much heralded Chinese sources would shed a whole new light on the war. In effect, all they did was prove that Ming officers and bureaucrats were easily the match of the Japanese and Admiral Yi in glorifying and exaggerating their accomplishments, and as quick to blame others for failures as the Japanese and Koreans. Swope also makes an unconvincing argument that the war should be considered “The First Great East Asian War”-do we really need another name for a conflict that has a dozen or more already? This book is destined to become the Chinese history counterpart to the Korea-centric “Admiral Yi and His Turtleboat Armada” (although, to be fair, not quite THAT bad). It is better than Turnbull’s 96-page stinker for Osprey, “The Samurai Invasion of Korea”, but not Turnbull’s original “Samurai Invasion” (which remains the strongest English language work on the war from a purely military standpoint). Hawley’s Imjin War, even with its assorted flaws, remains the best overall treatment of the conflict. Reading all three and getting each perspective would likely give the reader a solid overview of the war. However, the position of “Definitive English Language Account of Hideyoshi’s Korean Invasions” remains unclaimed and open. Any takers?
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The official blog of the Samurai Archives Japanese History Page
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Snobbery, Fear and Loathing in the Imjin War
I’ve been leading a small discussion group on the Samurai Archives Citadel forum on the topic of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea. We’ve been having a great time and learning a great deal about this conflict. We recently had a discussion about some of the books covering this topic available in English. Never a dull topic, this 1592-1598 conflict has managed to spark debate among Chinese, Korean and Japanese scholars for quite a long time. Now, it seems the scholarly sniping has reached the English speaking world as well.
In the past six years or so, it seems that Hideyoshi’s Korean wars, henceforth called the ‘Imjin War’ have caught the attention of native English-speaking scholars. First on the scene was Stephen Turnbull in 2002 with his ground breaking book, Samurai Invasion, followed by Samuel Hawley with The Imjin War. Kenneth Swope, currently an Assistant Professor of History at Ball State University, came out with some papers and articles on the conflict, most notably “Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed During the Sino-Japanese-Korean War, 1592–1598” published in The Journal of Military History 69 (January 2005) and then “Beyond Turtleboats: Siege Accounts from Hideyoshi’s Second Invasion of Korea, 1597-1598” published in the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol. 6, No. 2. 2006.
First a few words on Turnbull. Let’s face it. Dr. Turnbull has been a whipping boy in many circles for a variety of reasons ranging from recycling Papinot nearly word for word, sloppy mistakes, and then regurgitating his own works in “new” books at a pace that rivals the output of the slurpee machine at the corner Seven-Eleven. But I’m not here to bury Dr. Turnbull today in heaps of scorn, but to praise him. Faults aside, Turnbull deserves a great deal of credit for bringing the Imjin War to the forefront as his name is a big draw in the samurai history mass media market. In the West, the Imjin War is really the truly ‘forgotten’ Korean war and Turnbull has pulled this topic out of the shadows and into the light in what I feel is probably his best major work. Turnbull gives a very good, agenda-free account of the conflict that left me hungering for more.
Luckily for me, Samuel Hawley came out with the meaty The Imjin War. At over 600 pages, this book is a feast for one looking for a well-rounded narrative of the war. I was hooked as soon as I started reading about the pre-invasion diplomatic posturing and blundering. Well researched and documented, Hawley deserves a big round of applause for this work. While Turnbull is better at focusing on the purely military aspects of the Imjin War, Hawley excels at telling the “story behind the story” in an easy-to-follow format. Hawley and Turnbull’s books nicely complement each other kind of like an appetizer and a main course. But what’s for dessert?
Unfortunately it looks like “sour grapes” are on the menu. As previously mentioned, Swope has written some articles (actually more than two) on the Imjin War, and a book entitled A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Greater East Asian War, 1592-1598, is due to be published later this year as part of the University of Oklahoma Press’s “Campaigns & Commanders” series. But even long before the publication of his book, Swope has taken it upon himself to go on the offensive against both Turnbull and Hawley.
Here is what Swope had to say about Turnbull’s Samurai Invasion in his “Crouching Tiger” article:
“Stephen Turnbull published the first popular account, which, although it provides a solid general narrative of the war, has a number of shortcomings. First of all, Turnbull relies entirely on Japanese- and English-language secondary materials, augmented by a few translations of primary sources. He uses virtually nothing written from the Chinese perspective, not even widely available English-language reference works or monographs. He also leaves out much important Japanese scholarship, most notably the works of Kitajima Manji, who has published extensively on the subject. As a result the work is one-sided and presents a rather flawed interpretation of the war. Turnbull repeats the conventional view that Hideyoshi’s death in 1598 was the primary factor in Japan’s defeat in Korea. He also seems to adopt a pro-Japanese slant throughout, such as glossing over Japanese atrocities by blaming them on “lesser soldiers not in the first rank of samurai heroes.” Nevertheless, Turnbull does deserve credit for making a larger audience aware of this war and its historical importance...erroneously refers to the Battle of Pyŏkchegwan as the largest or most important conflict of the entire Korean campaign.”
It doesn’t seem all that professional to attack another author like this in an article such as “Crouching Tigers”. Turnbull’s book may have some flaws and is by no means perfect, but I cannot agree completely with Swope’s criticism of Turnbull. Was “Crouching Tigers” meant to be an op-ed or review of other works or a vehicle for Swope to put forth his theory that technology was the single most important variable in determining the outcome of the war?
Turnbull has trooped on with his Imjin research and has published additional titles for Osprey that touch upon the Imjin War, most notably Fighting Ships of the Far East 2 and the newly released Japanese Castles in Korea 1592-98. I think it is safe to say that Turnbull’s level of scholarship is improving, but again, his previous works have brought himself a lot of criticism in the past, some of it deserved. People may have a negative thing or two to say about Turnbull, but one thing you cannot deny is that he has been a gentleman in the face of Swope’s criticism. In the bibliographical section of Japanese Castles in Korea, Turnbull praises Swope as being a ‘particularly fine contributor’ to the study of the Imjin War and singles out “Crouching Tigers” as one of these outstanding articles. I thought this was classy, especially after what Swope wrote about Turnbull’s book in that article.
In the case of Hawley’s book, Swope goes to work on him in perhaps one of the most public of places in the world-- Amazon.com. In a scathing swipe at Hawley in a review on the book’s website, Swope writes:
“While this book has the trappings of an academic monograph, it is in fact little more than a basic narrative cobbled together from translated sources. The author provides little real analysis and has only a limited grasp of the actual historical source base, instead working through the translations of others. The result is a well-intentioned, but ultimately unsatisfying work full of both minor and major mistakes of fact and interpretation. It is perhaps slightly better than what might be available in English (in one volume) at this point, but those seeking a serious and nuanced understanding of this conflict, should best look elsewhere.”
Oh, the snobbery drips from Swope’s review like snot from a bratty kid’s runny nose! Hawley’s book was a six-year labor of love in the making, and the painstaking research he did to weave this book into a coherent and excellent overview of the Imjin War deserves to be commended. For an academic aspiring for Imjin ‘greatness’, a blatant attack of this nature is despicable.
What is Swope looking for? Absolute perfection? In a topic such as the Imjin War where the truth lies somewhere between what is written in the contemporary primary sources of the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese, it is going to be hard to find perfection—let alone write a book that satisfies people who have ulterior agendas aimed at defending or glorifying the actions of any one of the combatants in this multinational conflict.
I don’t know what Turnbull and Hawley have done to deserve such public attacks by Swope. Perhaps they didn’t heap enough praise on the Ming nor pay the proper level of respect to the Middle Kingdom’s role in pushing the Japanese ‘robber dwarfs’ off the continent. Whatever the case, I certainly hope that this isn’t Swope’s way of doing pre-publication self-promotion. Swope’s swipes at both Turnbull and Hawley sorely detract from the merit of his own research and writing—and that is too bad, because I think Swope has a lot of interesting things to say, whether one agrees with everything he writes or not. Instead, Swope has taken us on a snobbish detour into his personal fear and loathing of his peers. Perhaps it is just a case of Imjin envy?
In any event, Swope’s criticisms, like an old fashioned Chinese fo-lang-chi firearm, lack any decisive battlefield punch and could make him look like a true paper tiger. Swope himself will have to run the gauntlet of peer reviews when his new book, A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail is published. Swope’s attacks on Turnbull and Hawley could actually blow up in his face like a poorly made Ming copy of a Portuguese arquebus if his book misses the mark. All we can do is wait and see.
In the past six years or so, it seems that Hideyoshi’s Korean wars, henceforth called the ‘Imjin War’ have caught the attention of native English-speaking scholars. First on the scene was Stephen Turnbull in 2002 with his ground breaking book, Samurai Invasion, followed by Samuel Hawley with The Imjin War. Kenneth Swope, currently an Assistant Professor of History at Ball State University, came out with some papers and articles on the conflict, most notably “Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed During the Sino-Japanese-Korean War, 1592–1598” published in The Journal of Military History 69 (January 2005) and then “Beyond Turtleboats: Siege Accounts from Hideyoshi’s Second Invasion of Korea, 1597-1598” published in the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol. 6, No. 2. 2006.
First a few words on Turnbull. Let’s face it. Dr. Turnbull has been a whipping boy in many circles for a variety of reasons ranging from recycling Papinot nearly word for word, sloppy mistakes, and then regurgitating his own works in “new” books at a pace that rivals the output of the slurpee machine at the corner Seven-Eleven. But I’m not here to bury Dr. Turnbull today in heaps of scorn, but to praise him. Faults aside, Turnbull deserves a great deal of credit for bringing the Imjin War to the forefront as his name is a big draw in the samurai history mass media market. In the West, the Imjin War is really the truly ‘forgotten’ Korean war and Turnbull has pulled this topic out of the shadows and into the light in what I feel is probably his best major work. Turnbull gives a very good, agenda-free account of the conflict that left me hungering for more.
Luckily for me, Samuel Hawley came out with the meaty The Imjin War. At over 600 pages, this book is a feast for one looking for a well-rounded narrative of the war. I was hooked as soon as I started reading about the pre-invasion diplomatic posturing and blundering. Well researched and documented, Hawley deserves a big round of applause for this work. While Turnbull is better at focusing on the purely military aspects of the Imjin War, Hawley excels at telling the “story behind the story” in an easy-to-follow format. Hawley and Turnbull’s books nicely complement each other kind of like an appetizer and a main course. But what’s for dessert?
Unfortunately it looks like “sour grapes” are on the menu. As previously mentioned, Swope has written some articles (actually more than two) on the Imjin War, and a book entitled A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Greater East Asian War, 1592-1598, is due to be published later this year as part of the University of Oklahoma Press’s “Campaigns & Commanders” series. But even long before the publication of his book, Swope has taken it upon himself to go on the offensive against both Turnbull and Hawley.
Here is what Swope had to say about Turnbull’s Samurai Invasion in his “Crouching Tiger” article:
“Stephen Turnbull published the first popular account, which, although it provides a solid general narrative of the war, has a number of shortcomings. First of all, Turnbull relies entirely on Japanese- and English-language secondary materials, augmented by a few translations of primary sources. He uses virtually nothing written from the Chinese perspective, not even widely available English-language reference works or monographs. He also leaves out much important Japanese scholarship, most notably the works of Kitajima Manji, who has published extensively on the subject. As a result the work is one-sided and presents a rather flawed interpretation of the war. Turnbull repeats the conventional view that Hideyoshi’s death in 1598 was the primary factor in Japan’s defeat in Korea. He also seems to adopt a pro-Japanese slant throughout, such as glossing over Japanese atrocities by blaming them on “lesser soldiers not in the first rank of samurai heroes.” Nevertheless, Turnbull does deserve credit for making a larger audience aware of this war and its historical importance...erroneously refers to the Battle of Pyŏkchegwan as the largest or most important conflict of the entire Korean campaign.”
It doesn’t seem all that professional to attack another author like this in an article such as “Crouching Tigers”. Turnbull’s book may have some flaws and is by no means perfect, but I cannot agree completely with Swope’s criticism of Turnbull. Was “Crouching Tigers” meant to be an op-ed or review of other works or a vehicle for Swope to put forth his theory that technology was the single most important variable in determining the outcome of the war?
Turnbull has trooped on with his Imjin research and has published additional titles for Osprey that touch upon the Imjin War, most notably Fighting Ships of the Far East 2 and the newly released Japanese Castles in Korea 1592-98. I think it is safe to say that Turnbull’s level of scholarship is improving, but again, his previous works have brought himself a lot of criticism in the past, some of it deserved. People may have a negative thing or two to say about Turnbull, but one thing you cannot deny is that he has been a gentleman in the face of Swope’s criticism. In the bibliographical section of Japanese Castles in Korea, Turnbull praises Swope as being a ‘particularly fine contributor’ to the study of the Imjin War and singles out “Crouching Tigers” as one of these outstanding articles. I thought this was classy, especially after what Swope wrote about Turnbull’s book in that article.
In the case of Hawley’s book, Swope goes to work on him in perhaps one of the most public of places in the world-- Amazon.com. In a scathing swipe at Hawley in a review on the book’s website, Swope writes:
“While this book has the trappings of an academic monograph, it is in fact little more than a basic narrative cobbled together from translated sources. The author provides little real analysis and has only a limited grasp of the actual historical source base, instead working through the translations of others. The result is a well-intentioned, but ultimately unsatisfying work full of both minor and major mistakes of fact and interpretation. It is perhaps slightly better than what might be available in English (in one volume) at this point, but those seeking a serious and nuanced understanding of this conflict, should best look elsewhere.”
Oh, the snobbery drips from Swope’s review like snot from a bratty kid’s runny nose! Hawley’s book was a six-year labor of love in the making, and the painstaking research he did to weave this book into a coherent and excellent overview of the Imjin War deserves to be commended. For an academic aspiring for Imjin ‘greatness’, a blatant attack of this nature is despicable.
What is Swope looking for? Absolute perfection? In a topic such as the Imjin War where the truth lies somewhere between what is written in the contemporary primary sources of the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese, it is going to be hard to find perfection—let alone write a book that satisfies people who have ulterior agendas aimed at defending or glorifying the actions of any one of the combatants in this multinational conflict.
I don’t know what Turnbull and Hawley have done to deserve such public attacks by Swope. Perhaps they didn’t heap enough praise on the Ming nor pay the proper level of respect to the Middle Kingdom’s role in pushing the Japanese ‘robber dwarfs’ off the continent. Whatever the case, I certainly hope that this isn’t Swope’s way of doing pre-publication self-promotion. Swope’s swipes at both Turnbull and Hawley sorely detract from the merit of his own research and writing—and that is too bad, because I think Swope has a lot of interesting things to say, whether one agrees with everything he writes or not. Instead, Swope has taken us on a snobbish detour into his personal fear and loathing of his peers. Perhaps it is just a case of Imjin envy?
In any event, Swope’s criticisms, like an old fashioned Chinese fo-lang-chi firearm, lack any decisive battlefield punch and could make him look like a true paper tiger. Swope himself will have to run the gauntlet of peer reviews when his new book, A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail is published. Swope’s attacks on Turnbull and Hawley could actually blow up in his face like a poorly made Ming copy of a Portuguese arquebus if his book misses the mark. All we can do is wait and see.
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