Introduction: Why Animals and the Hunt?

Abstract

The introduction begins by describing a royal hunting excursion in the late fifteenth century when the young king and his entourage, including the most senior women at the court, attended a hunt outside the palace. This particular moment, one of many recorded in the early sources, demonstrates some of the political, social and gendered meanings of the hunt in premodern Korea and Northeast Asia. Next, the introduction examines the book in terms of animal and environmental studies. Considered throughout are ecological questions about land use and overhunting, the impact of human settlements on forests and animals, and the environmental consequences of state expansion. The introduction outlines the book’s structure and discusses the genesis of the project before offering a brief survey of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia on the eve of the fourteenth century and Mongol expansion.