Soju
A Global History

The first global study of the distinctive Korean soju, tracing cross-cultural exchanges and Korea's place in Eurasian history.

Hyunhee Park (Author)

9781108816113, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 August 2022

297 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.403 kg

'Park's Soju: A Global History represents an ambitious project adroitly rendered. It follows soju and its attendant culture and technology from premodern Afro- Eurasia, throughout the Mongol empire, across the Choso?n dynasty and Japanese colonial period, and finally to the contemporary Korean Wave. It will amply serve as an end in itself as well as a fecund point of departure for both researchers and students in a wide range of academic disciplines and historical periods.' John M. Frankl, Seoul Journal of Korean Studies

Hyunhee Park offers the first global historical study of soju, the distinctive distilled drink of Korea. Searching for soju's origins, Park leads us into the vast, complex world of premodern Eurasia. She demonstrates how the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wove together hemispheric flows of trade, empire, scientific and technological transfer and created the conditions for the development of a singularly Korean drink. Soju's rise in Korea marked the evolution of a new material culture through ongoing interactions between the global and local and between tradition and innovation in the adaptation and localization of new technologies. Park's vivid new history shows how these cross-cultural encounters laid the foundations for the creation of a globally connected world.

Introduction
1. Soju and Arak: The Eurasian Roots of Distilled Liquors
2. The Mongols and the Rise of Soju in Kory? Korea
3. Contextualizing Soju: Political Relations and Cultural Transfers between the Mongol Empire and Kory? Korea
4. Distilling Soju at Court and Home in Chos?n Korea
5. Challenges of Modernity: The Rise of Modern Industrial Soju and Revival of Traditional Soju
6. Alcohol Globalism: Distillation Technology in Afro-Eurasia and other areas of the World – The Cases of Japan and Mexico
Conclusion: Soju in Global Cross-Cultural Exchanges.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Food & society [JFCV], Asian history [HBJF]