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 | | Kim Il-song's North Korea: by Helen-Louise Hunter ISBN-10: 0275962962 ISBN-10: 0-275-96296-2 ISBN-13: 9780275962968 ISBN-13: 978-0-275-96296-8 Hardcover 1999-04-30 Praeger Publishers Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Hunter provides a glimpse inside North Korean society, detailing the everyday life of people living in perhaps the most isolated, secretive society of the 20th century. In this declassified CIA study, she describes the world's most extreme cult society under the charismatic totalitarian leader, Kim Il-song, who ruled his people for 45 years--longer than any other leader of the 20th century. Kim Il-song's totalitarian cult society comes closest to George Orwell's 1984 than any society yet contrived. Hunter brings to life what it is like to live in a thoroughly thought-controlled society--which also is the world's most class-conscious society. Based on all the sources available to the CIA at the time, this book is the most comprehensive look at North Korean life ever published. It is essential reading for foreign policy officials, Asian Studies scholars, and the general public interested in world affairs. | ||
Reviews | ||
critical baseline study for measuring change in north korea As another reviewer appropriately noted in assessing this book, "Kim Il-song's North Korea" is now 25+ years out of date. Because of this, Helen-Louise Hunter's study--edited down from a longer, classified report that she prepared while working at the Central Intelligence Agency--offers little meat for assessing the personal style and leadership track record of Kim Chong-il, who succeeded his father--Kim Il-song--as the absolutist leader of North Korea in 1994. Still, the book is a must-read for any scholar or journalist seeking to estimate the likelihood of future social collapse and regime change and/or to establish how much policy change Kim Chong-il has initiated. The raw material of "Kim Il-song's North Korea" was meticulously culled from thousands of intelligence reports, most from defectors, which documented life in the North Korea of the mid-1970s, and this material is presented in a descriptive, generally non-judgmental manner. To the degree that any period in North Korea can be called a golden age, it was the years covered here. P'yongyang's social contract with the populace--the government will meet your basic economic and welfare needs if you cede to us all decisionmaking authority and forego any personal liberties--was basically intact at this time. So too were the country's industrial infrastructure and its tight controls on the physical movement of the citizenry, and serious questions of political stability rarely arose. Outrage over Kim Chong-il's leadership style had not yet crystallized and Kim Il-song was seen as a demigod who had helped liberate Korea from Japan's colonial occupation. As even the most casual observer of North Korea today knows, the relative political and economic stability of the 1970s are long past, and for a dynamic understanding of North Korea in the 21st century, "Kim Il-song's North Korea" cannot stand alone. Neither, however, can we mine the full richness of more current books, including the gripping testaments of defectors, without referring back to Hunter's pathbreaking work. | ||
Misleading and very limited A book strictly for North Korea specialists. Certainly, as its reviews and the book-cover blurbs indicate a "unique" study. However what none of them say is; (1) this is strictly a basic socio-economic study; and (2) most tellingly, it may well be "from a declassified CIA study", but what they are not saying is that this study was written in 1980-81 and not updated etc for a 1999-2000 book publication release. Thus a study written in 1980 is dealing with 1970s material. Thus we have Kim Il-Sung's North Korea of the 1970s. We are reading about North Korea of 25+ years ago. Material content and style presentation is straightforward and "just the facts". Nothing laid out in this book will surprise anyone who is familiar with Communist bloc social control systems. There is no analysis or extrapolation worth mentioning from the socio-economic presentation. Key aspects even within that range e.g. Party-Army-Population relationships are not examined in any analytical note. This is a quite specific piece set in a quite specific time frame. Thus a read only for real North Korean buffs. As one reviewer has alluded to, the only real purpose of the description of conditions and life in North Korea of the 1970s, is to give us an indication as to the seeds of the (self-made) trouble and decline that has subsequently unfolded. The same mixture of issues that have brought down, principally from within, other Communist regimes, in this case merely with a particular North Korean spin to it. Thus as a book - a very particular snapshot. In its own right, as well as in terms of content -... | ||
Misleading and very limited A book strictly for North Korea specialists. Certainly, as its reviews and the book-cover blurbs indicate a "unique" study. However what none of them say is; (1) this is strictly a basic socio-economic or sociology-type study; and (2) most tellingly, it may well be "a recently declassified CIA study", but what they are not saying is that this study was written in 1980-81 and not updated for a 1999-2000 book publication release. It is a study written in 1980 and is thereby utilising 1970s material. In consequence we have a book about Kim Il-Sung's North Korea of the 1970s. We are reading about conditions in the North Korea of 25+ years ago. Material content and style presentation is straightforward and "just the facts". Nothing laid out in this book will surprise anyone who is familiar with Communist bloc social control systems. There is no analysis or extrapolation worth mentioning from the socio-economic presentation. Key aspects even within that range e.g. Party-Army-Population relationships are not examined in any analytical way. This is a quite specific piece set in a quite specific time frame. It is a read only for those with real interest in North Korea. It is, at best, a "background" information source. As one reviewer has alluded to, the only real purpose of any description of conditions and life in the North Korea of the 1970s, is to give us an indication of the seeds of the mismanagement and decline that has subsequently unfolded. The same mixture of issues that have brought down, principally from within, other Communist regimes, in this case merely with a particular North Korean spin to it. Thus as a book - a very particular snapshot. In its own right, as well as in terms of content. | ||
Great book that provides much insight These authors really did excellent research and they take the attentive reader behind the closed borders of North Korea. It is one of the last countries on earth that doesn't have diplomatic relations with the U.S. In this book the reader will experience the harsh reality of a poverty-striken country that happens to be the largest weapons exporter in the region. Another book that I highly recommend which is also based on a recent declassified CIA report and which discusses North Korea's secret but aggressive nuclear weapons program is the thriller THE CONSULTANT by Alec Donzi. | ||
a fascinating account This book is a fascinating account of North Korea under Kim Il-sung. I learned many things, such as his emphasis on the family. The trouble with this book is that we do not know if it describes North Korea today, or just North Korea in the past. But the description is fascinating. | ||