[KS] perspectives on Korean history

[Daniel Corey Kane]

I've enjoyed the recent debate over Korea's ostensibly invasion-ridden
past.  I would have to agree with the general consensus that Korea's
history is certainly no more, and considerably less in fact,
invasion-ridden than that of other countries east and west. Neither,
however, did it have much of an expansionist past.  I don't think anyone,
outside of some Korean nationalist historians, would equate Koguryo with
Korea though there are undeniably historical ties that bind them.  I
think most agree that the definition (as was brought up earlier I
think) of Korea as an invaded country was a line used heavily by Japanese
historians of the colonial period attempting to display Korea's
historic passivity and impotence. However, not to dump everything on the
lap of "Japanese colonial historians" I have come across a lot of these
views of Korea as passive and invaded decades before the colonial era in
the writings of Westerners.

Related to this topic of invasion then one could also pose the question
then of whether Korea was a "hermit nation". Perhaps Prof. Peterson could
attack that one next?  In fact, the two categorizations, of Korea as both
invaded and isolated, seem contradictory don't they? Does anyone know the
origins of Korea's designation as hermit nation? I know it was still
being referred to as such on the eve of annexation over 30 years after
opening up!