Soju: A Global History

Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI) - The City University of New York (CUNY)

Hyunhee Park offers the first global historical study of soju, the distinctive distilled drink of Korea. Searching for sojus origins, Park leads us into the vast, complex world of premodern Eurasia. She demonstrates how the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wove together hemispheric flows of trade, empire, scientific and technological transfer and created the conditions for the development of a singularly Korean drink. Sojus rise in Korea marked the evolution of a new material culture through ongoing interactions between the global and local and between tradition and innovation in the adaptation and localization of new technologies. Parks vivid new history shows how these cross-cultural encounters laid the foundations for the creation of a globally connected world.