<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light, Helvetica Neue Light, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32777">Dear colleagues, </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33041"> </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32832">I am pleased to announce my tenth book on Korea:</span> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745"><b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33199">Solitary Sage: The Profound Life, Wisdom and Legacy of Korea’s “Go-un” Choi Chi-won</b></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745" dir="ltr">This is a comprehensive biography and legacy-evaluation of Choi Chi-won (857-?), one of Korea’s most interesting and iconic historical figures, the first such book ever written in English. It is of academic quality, suitable for undergraduate or MA students of Korean or East Asian studies, and for courses of those levels on Korean history, culture and religion/philosophy. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745" dir="ltr">It includes well over a hundred photos of artworks and sites associated with him. Full footnotes with <i>Han-geul</i> / <i>Hanja</i> and dates for every name or term, list of references, and useful Appendix charts of the 83 sites in Korea that have relics of him or memorial shrines to him (yes, 83 in this small country! and there are 4 more in China...). Most of what can be known about the ancient background of his Gyeongju Choi (also spelled Choe) Clan, and Korean Confucianism and Daoism before him and in his days, are included to provide rich context. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745" dir="ltr">His amazingly broad and deep legacies over the millennium since Unified Shilla collapsed, right through the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties and the 20th century, are described and discussed, including sections on his <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33747">Pungryu</i> concept, the <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33819">Cheonbu-gyeong</i> (holy scripture of all branches of <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33831">Seondo</i>), his status as a progenitor of Korean Literature, the associated ceremonial and tourism sites, and modern national identity & spirit.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32984"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32986">“Go-un” or Lonely Cloud, known by Koreans for a millennium simply as the Great Sage, is considered a primary ancestral-hero of traditional Korean Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian culture, of Oriental literature, education and diplomacy. Following a remarkably successful career as a brilliant Confucian government official in Tang China and then back in his native Shilla Kingdom, he became a wandering historian of Korean Buddhism and then, supposedly, was one of few Koreans who achieved the highest level of Daoist sage-hood, achieving “Spirit-Immortal” status rather than dying. He is claimed as a key progenitor of Korea’s Daoism, Confucianism and the 2.1-million-strong Choi Clan. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32987"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32988"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32989">Choi Chi-won has a tremendous legacy-significance to several contemporary issues of Korea, including its international “brand-image” & self-promotion, its diplomacy and relations with China (one of his poems was quoted by President Xi to President Park at their first summit!), government policy, tourism offerings, cultural themes and national identity.<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32989"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32745"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32995">It has long been difficult for scholars to separate the folklore myths and legends about the Solitary Sage’s life from the recorded facts, and make a coherent story out of them – this volume does-so in English for the first time. Every Korean knows his name, and he is in all the school textbooks on history and literature; and over a thousand books have been published about him and his legacy in Korean, and a hundred or so in Japanese & Chinese...</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32995"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32995" dir="ltr">At this probably-too-late stage, I am attempting to become a "21st-century scholar", keeping-up with the millennials we teach, and so this tome has been independently published (main ISBN: 978-1-329-56586-9), and my webpage showing the book and offering it for sale, including hardcover edition, is: </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32995" dir="ltr">http://www.san-shin.org/Goun-Solitary-Sage-Choi-Chiwon.html </div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32996"><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33990"> </div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33990">AND, in that attempt, it is available in 4 digital POD and E-book versions, at:</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33996">http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/David_A_Mason_Korean_Daoism </div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33997"> </div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_33998">Reviewers can get a free hardcover copy by mail within Korea, simply by contacting myself. Reviewers outside of Korea are requested to download the black-white-photos E-book version from lulu as above (or Amazon, etc) and the publisher will repay the cost, by PayPal or etc.</div></div><div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32746"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32746" dir="ltr">The kind assistance of my fellow Koreanist scholars in 'spreading the word' about this new book, getting it onto publication-lists, library wish-lists, appropriate bibliographies and etc; getting it linked-to from related webpages, and getting it reviewed in relevant academic journals -- will be highly appreciated.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32746" dir="ltr"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32746"> </div><div class="signature" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32679"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32744"><span style="font-size:medium;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32743">Sincere Regards,</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32742"><font color="#00007f" size="4" face="bookman old style, new york, times, serif" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32823"><b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32822"><i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32821">David A. Mason</i></b></font></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32678"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32799"><span style="font-family:garamond, 'new york', times, serif;font-size:small;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32798">Professor <span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408102459448_10067" class="" style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408102459448_10066" class="">at Chung-Ang </span></span><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408102459448_10276" class="" style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408102459448_10275" class="">University, Seoul</span></span></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32801"><span style="font-family:garamond, 'new york', times, serif;font-size:small;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32800">Honorary Ambassador of the Baekdu-daegan Mountain-Range</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32677"><span style="font-family:garamond, 'new york', times, serif;font-size:small;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32676">tour-guide, lecturer and author on traditional cultural sites</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32803"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1464859449205_32803"><br></div></div></div></div></body></html>