South Korean Historiography on Civil Service Examination, Max Weber, and the Cold War Transpacific Invention of Confucian Modernity.

This article explores the historiography of South Korea regarding the Civil Service Examination, Max Weber, and the invention of Confucian modernity during the Cold War. It discusses how Japanese colonialism influenced the perception of Korean Confucian traditions as backward and how Korean intellectuals sought to decolonize this perspective by reinterpreting Confucian traditions as aligned with Western modernity. The article also examines how the Korean academic community reinvented Confucian traditions through the study of the Koryŏ and Chosŏn dynasties, particularly focusing on the civil service examination system. It argues that Confucianism was reinterpreted through Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy and that this reinvention was reinforced within the Cold War order. The text discusses the theory of the Koryŏ bureaucracy, which argues that the civil service examination system played a crucial role in the appointment of officials during the Kwangjong and Sŏngjong eras. The theory challenges the prevailing aristocracy theory and emphasizes the importance of recruiting capable officials from various social strata. The text also mentions criticism of the theory and its connection to Max Weber's bureaucratic and modernization theories. It explores the historical context of the theory's emergence and its relationship to the strengthening of the Cold War order in East Asia. This text discusses the debate among Korean historians in the post-liberation period regarding the nature of Korean history and the influence of Western theories, particularly Max Weber's concept of bureaucracy. Conservative historians criticized Marxist [Extracted from the article]