Navy ensign George Foulk made a 900-mile journey through southern Korea during which he kept a detailed record of everything he observed and experienced. This travel diary, part of the George Clayton Foulk collection in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, has been almost entirely overlooked by scholars and yet is of inestimable value. First, it is an account of a trip no Westerner had ever undertaken before or would ever experience again: a long-distance sedan chair journey in the manner of a Choson-dynasty government official. Containing his private thoughts,...

America's Man in Korea is the story of America's initial involvement in Korea as told through the private family letters of U.S. Navy ensign George Clayton Foulk, Washington's representative in Seoul in the mid-1880s. "The Hermit Kingdom," as Korea was known, was no ordinary diplomatic posting at this time. Emerging from centuries of self-imposed isolation, Korea was struggling to establish itself as an independent nation amid the imperial rivalries of China, Japan, England, and Russia; anti-foreign violence remained a simmering threat; the Korean government was a hotbed of intrigue and...