• Christopher Lovins, "King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea" (SUNY Press, 2019)

  • Aug 27 2024
  • Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
  • Podcast

Christopher Lovins, "King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea" (SUNY Press, 2019)

Listen for free

View show details

  • Summary

  • Though traditionally regarded as a monarch who failed to arrest the gradual decline of his kingdom, the Korean king Chŏngjo has benefited in recent decades from a wave of new scholarship which has reassessed both his reign and his role in Korean history. The latest to do so is Christopher Lovins, who in his book King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea (State University of New York Press 2019) explains how as king Chŏngjo governed not as a weak ruler but as an absolute monarch. Lovins situates this within modern definitions of absolutism, showing how their conceptualizations apply to Chŏngjo just as effectively as they do to such period rulers as the Chinese emperor Qianlong and the French monarch Louis XIV. Motivated by the experiences with court factionalism that he blamed for the death of his father, Chŏngjo drew upon Confucian thinking to strengthen his position ideologically. These arguments he used to centralize power in his hands, most dramatically in his strengthening of the traditionally weak Korean army. Though many of Chŏngjo’s changes were undone after his death in 1800, Lovins makes the case that Chŏngjo’s legacy should be considered separate from the failings of his successors rather than as part of them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
Show more Show less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Christopher Lovins, "King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea" (SUNY Press, 2019)

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available