한중일 삼국이 함께 쓴 동아시아근현대사 대안교과서의 서술체계와 내용분석

Abstract

Some Asian countries, recently, are in conflict with one another. The main issue is their historical background. Expecially the conflict among far east there countries, S.Korea, China and Japan become more serious in these days. Those countries have had a keen relationship from ancient times but also have an negative experience of war and invasion, imperialism and colony. The historical education and study of the same historical events has been different in the countries and the nations are not considerate of others' feeling. This causes the countries have domestic-focused historical description. The historical philosophy based on the nationalism can make people easily commit a fault of distorting history of both of their history and others. We can find it in the recent China's “Dongbook gonggung" and Japanese expansion of rightist. S.Korea also extraordinarily emphasize national consciousness in their history textbook. Under the current situation which those countries, S.Korea, Japan, and China will not give up their present historical education, think the three countries, should make an effort to reduce the exclusive nationalism and should pay attention to prospect the future. While the tension in Far East Asia is in the peak, the appearance of「focusing on History Toward the Future」, the alternative textbook made by S.Korea, China and Japan" is the first step toward Far East Asian Peace Community. The recent publishing of 『Staring at each other: Korea and Japan(Maju BoneunHanil-sa)』(August2006)and『Joseon Tongshin-sa(Joseon dynasty’s Emissary』(April 2005), the common history textbook of S.Korea and Japan shows the current tendency. In addition, “The East Asia History" is going to be added in the future curriculum. This raise the meaning of「focusing on History Toward the Future」, the first common history textbook among Korea, Japan and China. 「focusing on History Toward the Future」is the collaborative auxiliary textbook of Far East Asian three country, S.Korea, Japan, and China. It is a modern-comtemporary history book of those countries. It was published when “New history text book” published by "Husosha" in 2001 brought about the problem of distorting history. The three countries' historian and civil rights stalwarts made the book after three years discussion. Thus it has a critical mind to solve the current situation. It also has a common historical view to overcome out of date nationalism and to escape from domestic-centered historical idea. The comparative study between「focusing on History Toward the Future」 and the existing history textbook shows some characteristics of the former textbook. First it applies East Asia centric historical description carelessly concerned so far and escaped from a Eurocentric description. Second, while the former text book described East Asian history with China centric point of view, 「focusing on History Toward the Future」try to handle each countries history equally. It assigned six sections to describe three countries' history equally among six chapter twenty section. Although it can be commented that the book combined three nation's history mechanically, the book has a merit of providing us with a point of view to look out total East Asia instead of holding domestic history. Third, the most important point in the book, the portion of description about people and women is very high. So far people and women have been rarely mentioned in the history book. Thus the meaning of this book is more great. Forth, Enough references such as photos, pictures and maps are used to help understanding the contents. More than one references are listed in one page. Illustrations rarely appeared before are used in the book. This helps students to have the experiences of investigating history and handling historical data by themselves. Thus the book can be stand high in estimation. It's the book's strength that it has a East Asian centric description structure throwing Eurocentric or China centric point of view shown in the former text book. It also the book's strong point that it emphasizes people and women's history. However there are some problems to make up for and to revise. It will be summarized in the belows. First, by the structural side, 「focusing on History Toward the Future」 is heavily inclined toward modern history but relatively weak at comtemporary history. This tendency is appeared not only the contents but also study materials. It is discordant with the subject, “The history of East Asian Modern Comtemporary History". In addition, a parallel structure of arranging events gives a feeling that it just arranges each nation's history instead of focusing mutual understanding of three countries' history. It also has a problem of reducing connections among each events. The second problem is found in using historical terminology. The terms East Asia described on the title of this book is not appropriate. The meaning of ”East Asia" generally includes South-east Asia and North-east Asia but it excludes not only Vietnam and Mongolia but excludes North Korea and Taiwan. Thus it's more better use it title as ”The history of S.Korea, China, and Japan". In addition, it should be write a 'Chinese Character' after a geographical name and a person's name because it has the possibility of confusing to understand the exact meaning of the name. Third, selecting the contents, the Japanese imperialistic invasion very important in the modern history of Korea, China, and Japan has to be expressed and it had. However it described too far. It should have paid more attention to use various matter because it is a common textbook have to be used by the students in the three countries. Forth, the most big problem, already mentioned above, is that the nations called a "Non-main stream group" was not joined in the writing process. North Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam are those countries. They have been took an important role in making East Asia's modern, contemporary history and have a relationship with S.Korea, China, and Japan and still exist in the world. However they are excluded in this compilation and their point of view can not be reflected. Although the book has some problems, it's the first common history textbook of East Asia and shows a possibility of universal history teaching to overcome nationalistic historical education reconstructing the modern comtemporary history. The countries should make a common base of understanding for future by reconsidering the modern history and the comtemporary history in twenty century. The description led by nation should be disappeared or at least minimized to stop political and ideological dispute and to have a new understanding base. Under the premise, the new text book bringing thinking and critical power can be appeared based on the liberal academic study. 「focusing on History Toward the Future」, mentioned above, is the first trial to make peace community of East Asia by the efforts of non government organizations and shows the possibility. The contents used in 'East Asia History' lecture in 2010 should be future-aimed and open-minded understanding and approach instead of emphasizing exclusive nationalism. As appeared in 「focusing on History Toward the Future」, the modern history should be reviewed with multilateral method for the common future in East Asia and it also has to describe that each nations have had different way.