Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) - Softcover

Fedman, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295752866 ISBN 13: 9780295752860

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2024

Synopsis

Conservation as a tool of colonialism in early twentieth-century Korea Japanese colonial rule in Korea (1905–1945) ushered in natural resource management programs that profoundly altered access to and ownership of the peninsula’s extensive mountains and forests. Under the banner of “forest love,” the colonial government set out to restructure the rhythms and routines of agrarian life, targeting everything from home heating to food preparation. Timber industrialists, meanwhile, channeled Korea’s forest resources into supply chains that grew in tandem with Japan’s imperial sphere. These mechanisms of resource control were only fortified after 1937, when the peninsula and its forests were mobilized for total war. In this wide-ranging study David Fedman explores Japanese imperialism through the lens of forest conservation in colonial Korea—a project of environmental rule that outlived the empire itself. Holding up for scrutiny the notion of conservation, Seeds of Control examines the roots of Japanese ideas about the Korean landscape, as well as the consequences and aftermath of Japanese approaches to Korea’s “greenification.” Drawing from sources in Japanese and Korean, Fedman writes colonized lands into Japanese environmental history, revealing a largely untold story of green imperialism in Asia.

About this title

About the Authors

Fedman is assistant professor of history at the University of California, Irvine.

Paul Sutter is series editor for the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books series. He is professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has published five books, including Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement (University of Washington Press, 2005) and Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies: Providence Canyon and the Soils of the South (University of Georgia Press, 2015).

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295752866
• ISBN 13: 9780295752860
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320