Download or read book Capitalist in North Korea written by Felix Abt and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Business in North Korea: a paradoxical and fascinating situation is interpreted by a true insider. In 2002, the Swiss power company ABB appointed Felix Abt its country director for North Korea. The Swiss Entrepreneur lived and worked in North Korea for seven years, one of the few foreign businessmen there. After the experience, Abt felt compelled to write A Capitalist in North Korea to describe the multifaceted society he encountered. North Korea, at the time, was heavily sanctioned by the UN which made it extremely difficult to do business. Yet he discovered that it was a place where plastic surgery and South Korean TV dramas were wildly popular and where he rarely needed to walk more than a block to grab a quick hamburger. He was closely monitored and once faced accusations of spying, yet he learned that young North Koreans are hopeful—signing up for business courses in anticipation of a brighter, more open, future. In A Capitalist in North Korea, Abt shares these and many other unusual facts and insights about one of the world's most secretive nations.
Download or read book The Hidden People of North Korea written by Ralph Hassig and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-04-16 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique book, now fully updated, provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of life in North Korea today. Drawing on decades of experience, noted experts Ralph Hassig and Kongdan Oh explore a world few outsiders can imagine. In vivid detail, the authors describe how the secretive and authoritarian government of Kim Jong-un shapes every aspect of its citizens' lives, how the command socialist economy has utterly failed, and how ordinary individuals struggle to survive through small-scale capitalism. Weighing the very limited individual rights allowed, the authors illustrate how the political class system and the legal system serve solely as tools of the regime. The key to understanding how the North Korean people live, the authors argue, is to realize that their only allowed role is to support Kim Jong-un, whose grandfather founded the country in the late 1940s. Still a cypher, Kim Jong-un, as did his father before him, controls his people by keeping them isolated and banning most foreigners. North Koreans remain hungry and oppressed, yet the outside world is slowly filtering in, and the book concludes by urging the United States to flood North Korea with information so that its people can make decisions based on truth rather than their dictator's ubiquitous propaganda.
Download or read book Three Days in the Hermit Kingdom written by Eddie Burdick and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To most of the world, North Korea remains a secretive and mysterious nation, one that has tightly controlled the outflow of information in order to groom its public image. This book chronicles a rare, regime-sanctioned excursion by a North American into the heart of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. What is revealed is often what's expected, such as the adoration of leaders, excursions to national monuments, and exposure to propaganda relating to self-sufficiency. But as a Korean speaker, the author gathered a lot more information than the scripted English narration provided by his Korean guides. Behind the propaganda of the Communist regime, the authentic, eye-opening North Korea is revealed.
Download or read book North Korea written by Ryan Burke and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-05-09 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ebook serves as an introduction to the sometimes bizarre and disturbing country of North Korea. The country of North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has existed only since September 9th, 1948, when Kim Il Sung took power, and his constitution was adopted. Before then, it has a long history of kingdoms and colonialism. Moreover, it is important to remember that the history of North Korea before 1948 is inseparable from that of South Korea. First, this book will describe how the country came to be, including elements from past eras that helped shape the North Korean ideology of today. Next, I will describe in detail the ideology established by Kim Il Sung, known as Juche, describing how it handles economics, foreign relations, and the control of the people. I will next address the persistent hunger and famine situation in North Korea. I will describe the culture of the North Koreans, paying attention to how the cultural factors before Kim Il Sung interacted with the establishment of Juche. The daily life of a North Korean citizen will be explained and how policies put forward by the ruling party have affected them over recent decades. Finally, I will discuss the current conflict surrounding North Korea's controversial nuclear arms program and their current provocations on the world stage. The chapters of the book include: History: How Juche Came To Be Juche Ideology Famine of the 1990's Daily Life of A North Korean International Relations and Nuclear Weapons Program North Korea has had a tumultuous history and with the growing possibility of famine along with stricter sanctions from the United Nations, the hermit Kingdom is truly becoming desperate. To fully understand the political, social ideologies, economic situation and everything else that is North Korea, please scroll up and purchase my book for only $2.99 Thank you for your time! -Ryan
Download or read book Comrades and Strangers written by Michael Harrold and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-08-19 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1987 Michael Harrold went to North Korea to work as English language adviser on translations of the speeches of the late President Kim Il Sung (the Great Leader) and his son and heir Kim Jong Il (then Dear Leader and now head of state). For seven years he lived in Pyongyang enjoying privileged access to the ruling classes and enjoying the confidence of the country’s young elite. In this fascinating insight into the culture of North Korea he describes the hospitality of his hosts, how they were shaken by the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and many of the fascinating characters he met from South Korean and American GI defectors to his Korean minder and socialite friends. After seven years and having been caught passing South Korean music tapes to friends and going out without his minder to places forbidden to foreigners, he was asked to leave the country.
Download or read book The Girl With Seven Names written by Hyeonseo Lee and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2014-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships and the story of one woman s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom. As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told the best on the planet ? Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family. She could not return, since rumours of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable. This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life not once, but twice first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit."
Download or read book The Girl with Seven Names A North Korean Defector s Story written by Hyeonseo Lee and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.
Download or read book Ask A North Korean written by Daniel Tudor and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In his new book, Ask a North Korean, Daniel Tudor--a former Economist journalist and current Korean beer entrepreneur-- wants people to understand the true lives of everyday North Koreans. Using translated essays written by defectors, the book covers topics from politics to pornography." -- The Boston Globe Understanding North Korean Through the Eyes of Defectors. The weekly column Ask A North Korean, published by NK News, invites readers from around the world to pose questions to North Korean defectors. Adapted from the long-running column, these fascinating interviews provide authentic firsthand testimonies about life in North Korea and what is really happening inside the "Hermit Kingdom." North Korean contributors to this book include: "Seong" who went to South Korea after dropping out during his final year of university. He is now training to be an elementary school teacher. "Kang" who left North Korea in 2005. He now lives in London, England. "Cheol" who was from South Hamgyeong in North Korea and is now a second-year university student in Seoul. "Park" worked and studied in Pyongyang before defecting to the U.S. in 2011. He is now studying at a U.S. college. Ask A North Korean sheds critical light on all aspects of North Korean politics and society and shows that, even in the world's most authoritarian regime, life goes on in ways that are very different from what outsiders may think.
Download or read book Korea a Century of Change written by Jrgen Kleiner and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2001 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an evenhanded coverage of Korea''s turbulent history during the last one hundred years, from seclusion to division. It focuses particularly on the development of the two different and antagonistic states on the peninsula since 1945. The author sees both countries through the windows of their possibilities and interests. He supplements his narrative, which makes use of rich source material, with observations he has made in South Korea, where he spent more than ten years from the 1970s to the 1990s, and where he had access to politicians and opinion leaders. The book starts by describing how the Hermit Kingdom was exposed to the greed of foreign powers at the end of the 19th century and how it became the victim of imperialistic Japan, then account is given of the country''s division and the hardening of that division through the Korean War. The rule of the military and the final triumph of civilian democrats in South Korea are analyzed in much detail. One chapter is devoted to the rise and intermittent decline of the South Korean economy. The history of North Korea under Kim II Sung and under his son is told, before the foreign relations of both Koreas are explained. A chapter on the so far overwhelmingly antagonistic South-North relations concludes the book. Sample Chapter(s). Foreword (95 KB). Chapter 1: The Hermit Kingdom (172 KB). Contents: Korea and the Modern Age: The Hermit Kingdom; Within Reach of the World Powers; The Japanese Rule; Divided Korea: The Origins of the Division of Korea; The Korean War Phase One: Towards Reunification; The Korean War Phase Two: The Division Hardens; Politics and Economics in the Republic of Korea: Syngman Rhee''s Korea; The Rise of Park Chung Hee; The Yushin System; Steps to Power; No Better Country?; OC Down with Military DictatorshipOCO The Beginnings of Democratic Rule; Civilian Leadership; The Economy; The Democratic People''s Republic of Korea: The State of Kim II Sung; North Korea Under the Son; Foreign Relations: South Korea''s Great Partner; The Neighbor in the East; Northern Policy; North Korea''s Foreign Partners; Nuclear Dangers and Beyond; South-North Relations: Confrontation and Dialogue. Readership: General."
Download or read book Nothing to Envy written by Barbara Demick and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An eye-opening account of life inside North Korea—a closed world of increasing global importance—hailed as a “tour de force of meticulous reporting” (The New York Review of Books) FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD WINNER OF WINNERS AWARD In this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il (the father of Kim Jong-un), and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded, and an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. She takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors, and through meticulous and sensitive reporting we see her subjects fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we witness their profound, life-altering disillusionment with the government and their realization that, rather than providing them with lives of abundance, their country has betrayed them. Praise for Nothing to Envy “Provocative . . . offers extensive evidence of the author’s deep knowledge of this country while keeping its sights firmly on individual stories and human details.”—The New York Times “Deeply moving . . . The personal stories are related with novelistic detail.”—The Wall Street Journal “A tour de force of meticulous reporting.”—The New York Review of Books “Excellent . . . humanizes a downtrodden, long-suffering people whose individual lives, hopes and dreams are so little known abroad.”—San Francisco Chronicle “The narrow boundaries of our knowledge have expanded radically with the publication of Nothing to Envy. . . . Elegantly structured and written, [it] is a groundbreaking work of literary nonfiction.”—John Delury, Slate “At times a page-turner, at others an intimate study in totalitarian psychology.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Download or read book North Korean Review Vol 11 No 2 Fall 2015 written by Yongho Kim and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North Korean Review is the first academic journal in North America or Europe to focus exclusively on North Korea. The purpose of NKR is to provide readers with an improved understanding of the country’s complexities and the threat it presents to global stability. International and interdisciplinary, NKR is a refereed journal published twice a year. Topics include culture, history, economics, business, religion, politics and international relations, among others.
Download or read book North Korea written by Robert Willoughby and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2014-07-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential book for visitors making short, guided visits to North Korea or living there for longer periods.
Download or read book North Korea written by Elizabeth Raum and published by Capstone Classroom. This book was released on 2012 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book briefly examines the history, people, and environment of the country of North Korea.
Download or read book IN NORTH KOREA written by Rory Maclean and published by eBook Partnership. This book was released on 2017-09-16 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North Koreans could change the world. Today their country can annihilate South Korea and Japan. By 2020 their aim is to have submarine-launched missiles able to nuke the US mainland. So who are the North Koreans? What do they think and feel? Are they belligerent automatons, indoctrinated by years of propaganda, with fingers hovering over trigger buttons? Or simply ordinary men and women who have been shaped by fear or national idolisation, willing to do anything to be accepted and to survive?To answer these question, photographer Nick Danziger and author Rory MacLean, two of today's most sensitive chroniclers, travelled across the country, meeting farmers, fishermen and the captain of the national football team. They spent a morning one hundred metres underground with a 22-year-old subway train dispatcher and afternoons at the capital's dolphinarium, a lavish entertainment complex created to convince North Koreans of their prosperity. At the Museum of the Victorious Fatherland War, as the Korean War is known in the country, they spoke to a much-decorated national hero who boasted, 'When I was eighteen years old I shot and killed 367 enemy soldiers.'From the spotless streets of Pyongyang to the pine-fringed beaches of Wonsan, along the Youth Hero Road, an all-but-deserted strategic highway built by some 50,000 conscripts out of 'patriotic duty', Danziger and MacLean create a telling portrait of both ordinary and extraordinary North Koreans, catching a glimpse of real life in the world's most secretive nation, at a turning point in its - and our - history.'Danziger is the stuff that legends are made of.' -- Literary Review'One of the world's top photojournalists.' -- Practical Photographer'Rory MacLean is more than a gifted writer. He is a man whose artistry is underpinned by a powerful moral sensibility.' - Fergal Keane, BBC'MacLean is one of the most strikingly original and talented travel writers of his generation.' - Katie Hickman
Download or read book North Korea and the World written by Walter C. Clemens Jr. and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With nearly twenty-five million citizens, a secretive totalitarian dictatorship, and active nuclear and ballistic missile weapons programs, North Korea presents some of the world's most difficult foreign policy challenges. For decades, the United States and its partners have employed multiple strategies in an effort to prevent Pyongyang from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Washington has moved from the Agreed Framework under President Bill Clinton to George W. Bush's denunciation of the regime as part of the "axis of evil" to a posture of "strategic patience" under Barack Obama. Given that a new president will soon occupy the White House, policy expert Walter C. Clemens Jr. argues that now is the time to reconsider US diplomatic efforts in North Korea. In North Korea and the World, Clemens poses the question, "Can, should, and must we negotiate with a regime we regard as evil?" Weighing the needs of all the stakeholders -- including China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea -- he concludes that the answer is yes. After assessing nine other policy options, he makes the case for engagement and negotiation with the regime. There still may be time to freeze or eliminate North Korea's weapons of mass destruction. Grounded in philosophy and history, this volume offers a fresh road map for negotiators and outlines a grand bargain that balances both ethical and practical security concerns.
Download or read book North Korea written by Henry Marr and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2018-12-14 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of Bradt's North Korea has been completely written from scratch and remains the only standalone guide to what is often regarded as the world's most secretive state, a place never far from media scrutiny but about which very little is actually known in the wider world. Detailed is everything you need to know for a successful visit, from the practicalities of how to get there and who to go with to cultural sensitivities and etiquette, safety, money and travelling around. Amongst the places covered are the supra-centrally planned showcase capital of Pyongyang; Panmunjom, where North meets South face-to-face inside the 4km-wide DMZ - the dividing line between two nations and one people; Kumgansan Tourist Resort, the chiefly South Korean-built resort offering fantastic hikes; and Paektusan, the highest peak in all of Korea and Manchuria. For the intrepid and open-minded traveller North Korea is a truly mesmerising destination with a rich past and fascinating contemporary history. Visitors today are immersing themselves in an unrivalled experience in what is seemingly the last country in the world not to have submitted to globalisation, the last country still clinging on to the 20th century experiment in communism that for all others crumbled away shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Outside of the showcase socialist paradise of Pyongyang, visitors will find stunning natural scenery, from beautiful coastline and beaches to spectacular mountains, such as legendary Paektusan. Whilst many hold the ill-conceived notion that a visit to North Korea may not be safe, the reality is that visitors are warmly welcomed and still considered more as 'guests of the state' than as mere tourists. Written by expert author Henry Marr, who first visited North Korea in 2005 and has since been back more than twenty times, Bradt's North Korea is an indispensable guide to understanding and getting to know one of the world's most curious destinations.
Download or read book Aquariums Of Pyongyang Ten Years In The North Korean Gulag written by Kang Chol-hwan and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2001-10-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North Korea today is one of the last bastions of hard-line Communism. Until recently, no one ever managed to leave the country. No organized, active opposition movement exists, either at home or abroad. Western historians and researchers have had little access to information about North Korea apart from official Party documents and propaganda. This book marks the first time that a victim of the regime, a survivor and escapee, has provided a personal and documented insight into the labor camps, the organized famine, the farcical trials, the repression, and the political conditioning within this "hermit kingdom."Kang Chol-Hwan was arrested at the age of nine along with other members of his family when his grandfather made remarks about life in a capitalist country that were judged to be too complimentary. He grew up in the camps and has escaped to South Korea to document his personal life as a testimonial to the hardships and atrocities that constitute the lives of some several hundred thousand people living in the gulag today. Kang's account of his internment reveals the life-and-death conditions of the camp, the relentless forced labor, and the mental repression that drove the two hours of daily "political training" that followed twelve hours of backbreaking work. His memoir documents the political bartering of food and the "ideological" uses of malnutrition. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this book brings together unassailable firsthand experience, setting one young man's personal suffering in the wider context of modern history.
