Politics of Public Opinion

Eugene Y. Park's annotated translation of a long-awaited book by Kim Ingeol introduces Anglophone readers to a path-breaking scholarship on the widening social base of political actors who shaped "e;public opinion"e; (kongnon) in early modern Korea. Initially limited to high officials, the articulators of public opinion as the state and elites recognized grew in number to include mid-level civil officials, State Confucian College students, all Confucian literati (yurim), influential commoners who took over local councils (hyanghoe), and the general population. Marshaling evidence from a wealth of documents, Kim presents a compelling case for the indigenous origins of Korean democracy.