The Imjin War 1592-1598

by Jeffrey M. Shaw

Published 15 February 2020
The Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 unleashed a brutal conflict known in the West as the Imjin War. Forces from Korea and their ally, Ming China, resisted the Japanese, finally ending the war in 1598. The initial Japanese invasion witnessed the largest maritime expedition ever assembled, as over 150,000 samurai sailed from japan to Korea. Over the course of the war, the Korean navy led by the national hero Yi Sun Sin eroded Japan's ability to maintain its forces in Korea.

This book brings together scholarship from English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean sources. Examining the historical factors which led to the war, some of the technological developments which facilitated the conflict, and the armies and leaders that met in this seminal conflict, this book offers readers a view of the Imjin War's place in history and its impact on relations between Korea, China, and Japan in the twenty first century.

In 1529, an army from the Sultanate of Adal in modern-day Somalia invaded neighbouring Ethiopia. For the next fourteen years, the conflict ravaged Ethiopia, planting the seeds of enmity and mistrust in the Horn of Africa that resonates to this day. The Ethiopian-Adal War: Conquest of Abyssinia brings sixteenth-century Arab, Portuguese, and Ethiopian primary source material from this conflict to contemporary readers for the first time in the English language in a single volume. Situating the conflict into the wider struggle for maritime supremacy between the Portuguese and Ottoman Empires, readers will have the chance to learn about a little-known conflict which nearly resulted in the subjugation of Christian Ethiopia at the hands of Imam Gurey, the Sultan of Adal. Included are maps of the conflict's major battles, never before seen in any publication. Colour images of the combatants and photographs of the Ethiopian landscape complete the account of this epic conflict.