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The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China, by Samuel Hawley. Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, Publications and Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2005. xvi, 664 pp., illus. $45.00 cloth.
Samuel Hawley's book is a recent addition to the growing number of academic and general monographs on the Japanese invasion of Choson Korea at the end of the sixteenth century (1592-1598), often referred to as either the Japanese invasion of Korea or the Imjin War (imjin waeran). It was one of the most significant regional military conflicts in premodern East Asia, with the newly unified Japanese military forces battling against the combined forces of Choson Korea and Ming China. The war left indelible legacies in all three countries involved, especially Korea, yet despite its importance little scholarly attention has been given to it outside of Korea. It is therefore encouraging to see increasing interest in this topic, and indeed we have seen a number of new works, including Stephen Turnbull's Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War, 1592-1598 (Cassell, 2002) and Byonghyon Choi's translation of Yu Songnyong's The Book of Corrections: Reflections on the National Crisis during...