Renaming Plants and Nations in Japanese Colonial Korea

Jung Lee is an assistant professor at the Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.

“How Japanese is cherry blossom? Jung Lee’s vivid and subtle tale of interdependence and rivalry between botanists in Japan and Korea is an outstanding contribution both to the transnational history of modern science, and to our understanding of the dynamics of imperialism and nationalism.”Francesca Bray, University of Edinburgh, UK“One of the most important books on modern East Asian science in recent years. Renaming Plants and Nations is an impressive examination of the entanglement of science (particularly botany), Japanese imperialism/colonialism, and Korean nationalism. The book also provides a fascinating case study in the global history of science. A must-read.”Fa-ti Fan, Binghamton University, USA“This book makes an incisive analysis of how the mundane yet connected multi-local practices of classifying and naming plants, such as Japanese cherry and rose of Sharon, in Japanese colonial Korea (1910-1945) simultaneously shaped Korean and Japanese botany while also changing "Western" principles and practices of botany.”Geun Bae Kim, Jeonbuk National University, South Korea“This book provides a new view of the global history of botany from the local perspective of botanists in East Asia under Japanese imperialism. Lee sheds light on forgotten botanists, both colonizers and colonized, who tried their own practices under colonial culture and politics.”Akihisa Setoguchi, Kyoto University, Japan

• Introduction 1. European Botany Made in Japan 2. Japanese Botany Made in Korea 3. Unsettling Imperial Universality 4. Civilizing Ourselves 5. Becoming Japanese through Collaboration 6. Imperial Transformation of Traditions 7. Confined to Imperial Privilege 8. Liberating through Provincial Botany Conclusion. Moving beyond Mistaken Names for Connected Provincial Tasks