Download or read book The Aquariums of Pyongyang written by Chol-hwan Kang and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2005-08-24 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Destined to become a classic" (Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking), this harrowing memoir of life inside North Korea was the first account to emerge from the notoriously secretive country -- and it remains one of the most terrifying. Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education." Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok when he was nine years old, Kang observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations for ten years. In 1992, he escaped to South Korea, where he found God and now advocates for human rights in North Korea. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this book brings together unassailable firsthand experience, setting one young man's personal suffering in the wider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, giving eyewitness proof to the abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime.
Download or read book The Aquariums of Pyongyang written by Chol-hwan Kang and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2005-08-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.
Download or read book The Aquariums of Pyongyang written by Chol-Hwan Kang and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2005-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Korea written by Christoph Bluth and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Korea is one of the critical flashpoints in the world today. News of North Korea's recent nuclear tests, conducted in defiance of international pressure, drew widespread condemnation and raised serious concerns about the threat now posed to regional and international security by the regime of North Korea's dear leader Kim Jong-Il. This book penetrates the veil surrounding the conflict on the Korean peninsula and North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes. It provides a thorough historical analysis of relations between the two Koreas since the Korean War, which traces both North Korea's path to economic ruin and South Korea's transition from struggling dictatorship to vibrant democracy. As well as examining the political and economic development of North and South Korea at the domestic level, the book goes on to explore regional relations with Russia, China and Japan and, most importantly, America's dealings with Korea and its negotiations with North Korea, in particular. It concludes with an analysis of North Korea's current nuclear programme and its likely impact on international security in the 21st century.
Download or read book Suffering and Smiling written by Byung-Ho Chung and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-10-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suffering and Smiling: Daily Life in North Korea, is a field report of North Korean culture based on two decades of the author’s personal observation and contact with people. The dichotomy of suffering and smiling becomes a lens through which the author observes the transformation and resilience of North Korean life. The book delves into historical struggles, such as the Arduous March against Imperial Japan and the 1990s famine, juxtaposed with the persistent theme of smiling propagated by the regime. The author also weaves in the experiences of North Koreans, highlighting their ability to find humor and maintain humanity despite oppressive conditions. Anecdotes, such as spontaneous comments from refugees, showcase the resilience and subversive humor ingrained in North Korean culture. Despite its isolation and nuclear ambitions, the country is undergoing rapid social changes with informal connections to the global capitalist system. The book provides readers with empathetic glasses to view North Korea while considering its historical trauma and the enduring impact of Korean War. It promises a rich exploration of North Korean life, offering readers a compelling narrative that combines personal experiences, political insights, and cultural analysis. It sets the stage for a comprehensive understanding of a nation often shrouded in mystery and misunderstood by the outside world.
Download or read book Illusive Utopia written by Suk-Young Kim and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-03-11 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare glimpse into North Korean propaganda—in parades, posters, murals, theater, and films
Download or read book Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics written by Adam Cathcart and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years since the death of Kim Jong-il and the formal acknowledgement of Kim Jong-un as head of state, the North Korean regime has made a series of moves to further augment and consolidate the ideological foundations of Kimism and cement the young leader’s legitimacy. Historical narratives have played a critical, if often unnoticed, role in this process. This book seeks to chronicle these historical changes and continuities. Continuity and Change in North Korean Politics explores the stable and shifting political, cultural and economic landscapes of North Korea in the era of Kim Jong-un. The contributors deploy a variety of methodologies of analysis focused on the content, narratives and discourses of politics under Kim Jong-un, tracing its historical roots and contemporary practical and conceptual manifestations. Moving beyond most analyses of North Korea’s political and institutional ideologies, the book explores uncharted spaces of social and cultural relations, including children’s literature, fisheries, grassland reclamation, commemorative culture, and gender. By examining critical moments of change and continuity in the country’s past, it builds a holistic analysis of national politics as it is currently deployed and experienced. Demonstrating how historical, political and cultural narratives continue to be adapted to suit new and challenging circumstances, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Korean Politics and Asian Studies.
Download or read book Before Evil written by Brandon K. Gauthier and published by Tortoise Books. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 1679 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should we humanize the world's most inhumane leaders? Adolf Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Benito Mussolini. Mao Zedong. Kim Il Sung. Vladimir Lenin. These cruel dictators wrote their names on the pages of history in the blood of countless innocent victims. Yet they themselves were once young people searching for their place in the world, dealing with challenges many of us face—parental authority, education, romance, loss—and doing so in ways that might be uncomfortably familiar. Historian Brandon K. Gauthier has created a fascinating work—epic yet intimate, well-researched but immensely readable, clear-eyed and empathetic—looking at the lives of these six dictators, with a focus on their youths. We watch Lenin’s older brother executed at the hands of the Tsar’s police—an event that helped radicalize this overachieving high-schooler. We observe Stalin grappling with the death of his young, beautiful wife. We see Hitler’s mother mourning the loss of three young children—and determined that her first son to survive infancy would find his place in the world. The purpose isn’t to excuse or simply explain these horrible men, but rather to treat them with the empathy they themselves too often lacked. We may prefer to hold such lives at arm’s length so as to demonize them at will, but this book reminds us that these monstrous rulers were also human beings—and perhaps more relatable than we’d like.
Download or read book The Rough Guide to Korea written by Norbert Paxton and published by Rough Guides UK. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Korea is the ultimate travel guide to this fascinating peninsula, with clear maps and detailed coverage of all the best tourist attractions. Discover Korea's highlights with stunning photography and insightful descriptions of everything from Seoul's wonderful palaces and hectic nightlife scene to the fishing islands of the West and South Seas, as well as a chapter devoted to North Korea. Find detailed practical advice on what to see and do in Korea, relying on up-to-date descriptions of the best hotels, bars, clubs, shops and restaurants for all budgets. The Rough Guide to Korea also includes full-colour sections and describes the country's famously spicy food, plus a guide to hiking in its many national parks. In addition, a detailed history section gives a thorough account of the country's dynastic past, while a language guide will ensure that you find your way around this enchanting land. Originally published in print in 2011. Make the most of your trip with The Rough Guide to Korea. Now available in ePub format.
Download or read book North Korea in the 21st Century written by J.E. Hoare and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North Korea is not easily accessible, but boasts some of the most beautiful scenery in the Korean Peninsula, and arguably in East Asia. Travel to and in North Korea is tightly controlled, while political, economic, social and cultural life is played out in terms of a not readily understood philosophy, known as juche.
Download or read book Re Imagining North Korea in International Politics written by Shine Choi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global consensus in academic, specialist and public realms is that North Korea is a problem: its nuclear ambitions pose a threat to international security, its levels of poverty indicate a humanitarian crisis and its political repression signals a failed state. This book examines the cultural dimensions of the international problem of North Korea through contemporary South Korean and Western popular imagination’s engagement with North Korea. Building on works by feminist-postcolonial thinkers, in particular Trinh Minh-ha, Rey Chow and Gayatri Spivak, it examines novels, films, photography and memoirs for how they engage with issues of security, human rights, humanitarianism and political agency from an intercultural perspective. By doing so the author challenges the key assumptions that underpin the prevailing realist and liberal approaches to North Korea. This research attends not only to alternative framings, narratives and images of North Korea but also to alternative modes of knowing, loving and responding and will be of interest to students of critical international relations, Korean studies, cultural studies and Asian studies.
Download or read book Becoming Kim Jong Un written by Jung H. Pak and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking account of the rise of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—from his nuclear ambitions to his summits with President Donald J. Trump—by a leading American expert “Shrewdly sheds light on the world’s most recognizable mysterious leader, his life and what’s really going on behind the curtain.”—Newsweek When Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea following his father's death in 2011, predictions about his imminent fall were rife. North Korea was isolated, poor, unable to feed its people, and clinging to its nuclear program for legitimacy. Surely this twentysomething with a bizarre haircut and no leadership experience would soon be usurped by his elders. Instead, the opposite happened. Now in his midthirties, Kim Jong Un has solidified his grip on his country and brought the United States and the region to the brink of war. Still, we know so little about him—or how he rules. Enter former CIA analyst Jung Pak, whose brilliant Brookings Institution essay “The Education of Kim Jong Un” cemented her status as the go-to authority on the calculating young leader. From the beginning of Kim’s reign, Pak has been at the forefront of shaping U.S. policy on North Korea and providing strategic assessments for leadership at the highest levels in the government. Now, in this masterly book, she traces and explains Kim’s ascent on the world stage, from his brutal power-consolidating purges to his abrupt pivot toward diplomatic engagement that led to his historic—and still poorly understood—summits with President Trump. She also sheds light on how a top intelligence analyst assesses thorny national security problems: avoiding biases, questioning assumptions, and identifying risks as well as opportunities. In piecing together Kim’s wholly unique life, Pak argues that his personality, perceptions, and preferences are underestimated by Washington policy wonks, who assume he sees the world as they do. As the North Korean nuclear threat grows, Becoming Kim Jong Un gives readers the first authoritative, behind-the-scenes look at Kim’s character and motivations, creating an insightful biography of the enigmatic man who could rule the hermit kingdom for decades—and has already left an indelible imprint on world history.
Download or read book Tyranny of the Weak written by Charles K. Armstrong and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To much of the world, North Korea is an impenetrable mystery, its inner workings unknown and its actions toward the outside unpredictable and frequently provocative. Tyranny of the Weak reveals for the first time the motivations, processes, and effects of North Korea’s foreign relations during the Cold War era. Drawing on extensive research in the archives of North Korea’s present and former communist allies, including the Soviet Union, China, and East Germany, Charles K. Armstrong tells in vivid detail how North Korea managed its alliances with fellow communist states, maintained a precarious independence in the Sino-Soviet split, attempted to reach out to the capitalist West and present itself as a model for Third World development, and confronted and engaged with its archenemies, the United States and South Korea. From the invasion that set off the Korean War in June 1950 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tyranny of the Weak shows how—despite its objective weakness—North Korea has managed for much of its history to deal with the outside world to its maximum advantage. Insisting on a path of "self-reliance" since the 1950s, North Korea has continually resisted pressure to change from enemies and allies alike. A worldview formed in the crucible of the Korean War and Cold War still maintains a powerful hold on North Korea in the twenty-first century, and understanding those historical forces is as urgent today as it was sixty years ago.
Download or read book The Rough Guide to Korea written by Rough Guides and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Korea is the ultimate travel guide to this fascinating peninsula, with full-color maps and detailed coverage of all the best tourist attractions. Discover Korea's highlights with stunning photography and insightful descriptions of everything from Seoul's wonderful palaces and hectic nightlife scene to the fishing islands of the West and South Seas. Find detailed practical advice on what to see and do in Korea, relying on up-to-date descriptions of the best hotels, bars, clubs, shops and restaurants for all budgets. The Rough Guide to Korea includes a detailed history section which gives a thorough account of the country's dynastic past, while a language guide ensures that you find your way around this enchanting land. Make the most of your time with The Rough Guide to Korea.
Download or read book Reading North Korea written by Sonia Ryang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-04-06 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Often depicted as one of the world’s most strictly isolationist and relentlessly authoritarian regimes, North Korea has remained terra incognita to foreign researchers as a site for anthropological fieldwork. Given the difficulty of gaining access to the country and its people, is it possible to examine the cultural logic and social dynamics of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? In this innovative book, Sonia Ryang casts new light onto the study of North Korean culture and society by reading literary texts as sources of ethnographic data. Analyzing and interpreting the rituals and language embodied in a range of literary works published in the 1970s and 1980s, Ryang focuses critical attention on three central themes—love, war, and self—that reflect the nearly complete overlap of the personal, social, and political realms in North Korean society. The ideology embedded in these propagandistic works laid the cultural foundation for the nation as a “perpetual ritual state,” where social structures and personal relations are suspended in tribute to Kim Il Sung, the political and spiritual leader who died in 1994 but lives eternally in the hearts of his people and still weaves the social fabric of present-day North Korea."
Download or read book North Korea The Politics of Regime Survival written by Young Whan Kihl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring contributions by some of the leading experts in Korean studies, this book examines the political content of Kim Jong-Il's regime maintenance, including both the domestic strategy for regime survival and North Korea's foreign relations with South Korea, Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. It considers how and why the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) became a "hermit kingdom" in the name of Juche (self-reliance) ideology, and the potential for the barriers of isolationism to endure. This up-to-date analysis of the DPRK's domestic and external policy linkages also includes a discussion of the ongoing North Korean nuclear standoff in the region.
Download or read book The Rough Guide to Seoul written by Rough Guides and published by Rough Guides UK. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in full colour throughout, The Rough Guide to Seoul is the ultimate travel companion to the Korean capital, one of Asia's most intriguing and energetic cities. Comprehensive listings sections detail the very best places to eat, drink, shop and unwind in Seoul; includes everything from the luxurious cafes, restaurants and clothing boutiques of Apgujeong to Hongdae's snack stands, barbecue halls and hole-in-the wall bars, all shown on detailed maps. The Rough Guide to Seoul enables readers to dive into modern art, live music and other lesser-known facets of this fascinating city's culture. In addition, royal fortresses, secluded temples, enchanting islands and the world's most visited national park all lie within day-trip distance of Seoul - The Rough Guide to Seoul contains all the information a traveller could possibly need to reach all these, and more.
