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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 Read more

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle.Max Hastings—preeminent military historian—takes us back to the bloody bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with more than two-hundred vets—including the Chinese—Hastings follows real officers and soldiers through the battles. He brilliantly captures the Cold War crisis at home—the strategies and politics of Truman, Acheson, Marshall, MacArthur, Ridgway, and Bradley—and shows what we should have learned in the war that was the prelude to Vietnam. Read more

How did an Ivy League activist become a global fugitive? The New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil chronicles the heart-pounding tale of a self-taught operative's high-stakes attempt to subvert the North Korean regime.“Propulsive . . . Hope’s account is both deeply reported and novelistic.”—Ed Caesar, contributing staff writer for The New Yorker, author of The Mothand the MountainIn the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it.What began as a trip down the safe and well-worn path of organizing soon morphed into something more dangerous. Hong journeyed to China, outwitting Chinese security services as he helped asylum-seeking North Koreans escape across the border. Meanwhile, Hong’s secret organization, Cheollima Civil Defense (later renamed Free Joseon), began tracking the North Korean government’s activities, and its volatile third-generation ruler, Kim Jong-un. Free Joseon targeted North Korean diplomats who might be persuaded to defect, while drawing up plans for a government-in-exile. After the shocking broad-daylight assassination in 2017 of Kim Jong-nam, the dictator’s older brother, Hong, along with U.S. Marine veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry Kim Jong-nam’s family to safety. Then Hong took the group a step further. He initiated a series of high-stakes direct actions, culminating in an armed raid at the North Korean embassy in Madrid—an act that would put Ahn behind bars and turn Hong into one of the world’s most unlikely fugitives.In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of a man who turns his back on the status quo—to instead live boldly by his principles. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Bradley Hope—who broke numerous details of Hong’s operations in The Wall Street Journal—now reveals the full contours of this remarkable story of idealism and insanity, hubris and heroism, all set within the secret battle for the future of the world’s most mysterious and unsettling nation. Read more

A major new history of North and South Korea, from the late nineteenth century to the present dayKorea has a long, riveting history—it is also a divided nation. South Korea is a vibrant democracy, the tenth largest economy, and is home to a world-renowned culture. North Korea is ruled by the most authoritarian regime in the world, a poor country in a rich region, and is best known for the cult of personality surrounding the ruling Kim family. But both Koreas share a unique common history.Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo draw on decades of research to explore the history of modern Korea, from the late nineteenth century, Japanese occupation, and Cold War division to the present day. A small country caught amongst the world's largest powers—including China, Japan, Russia, and the United States—Korea's fate has been closely connected to its geography and the strength of its leadership and society. This comprehensive history sheds light on the evolving identities of the two Koreas, explaining the sharp differences between North and South, and prospects for unification. Read more

A history of the Korean War with soldier’s-eye views from both sides, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Rising Sun and Infamy.  Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Toland reports on the Korean War in a revolutionary way in this thoroughly researched and riveting book. Toland pored over military archives and was the first person to gain access to previously undisclosed Chinese records, which allowed him to investigate Chairman Mao’s direct involvement in the conflict. Toland supplements his captivating history with in-depth interviews with more than two hundred American soldiers, as well as North Korean, South Korean, and Chinese combatants, plus dozens of poignant photographs, bringing those who fought to vivid life and honoring the memory of those lost.  In Mortal Combat is comprehensive in it discussion of events deemed controversial, such as American brutality against Korean civilians and allegations of American use of biological warfare. Toland tells the dramatic account of the Korean War from start to finish, from the appalling experience of its POWs to Mao’s prediction of MacArthur’s Inchon invasion.   Toland’s account of the “forgotten war” is a must-read for any history aficionado. Read more

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This narrative tells the life story of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Second Coming of Christ, the Return of Jesus in Spirit and Power, the coming of the Spirit of Truth. It is from his own words from various speeches. It was compiled into 34 articles which appeared in a church publication called Today's World Magazine beginning in April, 2007, and ending in September, 2011.Rev. Moon starts by explaining the environment surrounding the village where he was born under Japanese occupation and introduces many of his familial relations.He gives many details of his personality, his love of nature, and experiences growing through childhood in war-torn Korea.On April 17, 1935, he was called by Jesus and began having profound experiences with all manner of beings and historical Biblical figures in the spiritual world.This compilation of articles will stand as an historical record of the monumental quest that was required to fulfill the mission of the Second Coming of Christ. Through unimaginable mental and physical suffering, even torture unto death, Sun Myung Moon, endured and emerged to build a world wide church of millions of members and foundations in every aspect of society for the future Kingdom of God on earth.His fundamental teaching, called the Divine Principle, is the revelation from God that Jesus proclaimed would come on the earth in John 16:13, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth." Read more

The U.S. Navy SEALs have long been considered among the finest, most courageous, and professional soldiers in American military history—an elite fighting force trained as parachutists, frogmen, demolition experts, and guerrilla warriors ready for sea, air, and land combat. Born out of a proud naval tradition dating back to World War II, the first SEAL teams were commissioned in the early 1960s. Vietnam was their proving ground.In this remarkable volume, fifteen former SEALs—most of them original founding team members, or "plankowners"—share their vivid first-person remembrances of action in Vietnam. Here are honest, brutal, and relentlessly thrilling stories of covert missions, ferocious firefights, and red-hot chopper insertions and extractions, revealing astonishing little-known truths that will only add strength to the enduring SEAL legend. Read more

Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader offers in-depth portraits of North Korea's two ruthless and bizarrely Orwellian leaders, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. Lifting North Korea's curtain of self-imposed isolation, this book will take readers inside a society, that to a Westerner, will appear to be from another planet. Subsisting on a diet short on food grains and long on lies, North Koreans have been indoctrinated from birth to follow unquestioningly a father-son team of megalomaniacs. To North Koreans, the Kims are more than just leaders. Kim Il-Sung is the country's leading novelist, philosopher, historian, educator, designer, literary critic, architect, general, farmer, and ping-pong trainer. Radios are made so they can only be tuned to the official state frequency. "Newspapers" are filled with endless columns of Kim speeches and propaganda. And instead of Christmas, North Koreans celebrate Kim's birthday--and he presents each child a present, just like Santa. The regime that the Kim Dynasty has built remains technically at war with the United States nearly a half century after the armistice that halted actual fighting in the Korean War. This fascinating and complete history takes full advantage of a great deal of source material that has only recently become available (some from archives in Moscow and Beijing), and brings the reader up to the tensions of the current day. For as this book will explain, North Korea appears more and more to be the greatest threat among the Axis of Evil countries--with some defector testimony warning that Kim Jong-Il has enough chemical weapons to wipe out the entire population of South Korea. Read more

“A comprehensive and impressively written history of the Korean War.”—Washington PostSelected for the 2019 Commandant's Professional Reading List Updated with maps, photographs, and battlefield diagrams, this special fiftieth anniversary edition of the classic history of the Korean War is a dramatic and hard-hitting account of the conflict written from the perspective of those who fought it. Partly drawn from official records, operations journals, and histories, it is based largely on the compelling personal narratives of the small-unit commanders and their troops. Unlike any other work on the Korean War, it provides both a clear panoramic overview and a sharply drawn "you were there" account of American troops in fierce combat against the North Korean and Chinese communist invaders. As Americans and North Koreans continue to face each other across the 38th Parallel, This Kind of Warcommemorates the past and offers vital lessons for the future.  Read more

This book (ISBN 9791188195602) is in BLACK AND WHITE If you want the color version, please consider the following options:1. Color Paperback - ISBN 97911881956192. Color Mass Market Paperback (Cheaper) - ISBN 97911881957013. Color Hardcover - ISBN 9791188195626Before reading this book, you probably had some moments of curiosity in your life where you questioned certain things about Korean culture. Why is there an American cola company's logo on the Korean flag? Why do Korean kids in my class only have like… three last names (Kim, Lee, Park)?If you are a K-Drama addict, and even took the time to watch variety shows with your favorite idols, your thoughts and interest towards Korea may have grown even deeper! Also, you may wonder why you become a year older as soon as arriving in Korea, why there's so much drama in those street tent bars, and how Koreans drink so much soju from those green bottles. And, probably the question on everyone’s mind in 2022, why is K-pop so dang popular (honorable mention: What the heck does “Gangnam Style” mean)?Well, if you get lost in translation, you can simply look up the word in the dictionary, but what if you get lost between cultures and there's no one to kindly tell you what's going on? You can get by with a lucky guess, but you are missing a valuable opportunity to learn about Korean culture indepthly!Regardless of who you are and where you come from – a K-Pop/K-Drama fanatic, an expat living in Korea, a student who just got accepted to study abroad in Korea (congrats!), or even a second-generation Gyopo from the Korean diaspora, you no longer have to stay puzzled and irritated by not being able to understand the peculiarities you find in Korea overall!With over 350 essential topics and most frequently asked questions that are hand-picked from 27 categories, covering virtually every aspect of Korean culture by laying out all the details on the “Five Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why) and How”, you can fully understand Korean culture inside and out!Most importantly, we’ve written this book with people like you in mind, so having zero knowledge about Korea is absolutely fine! However, if you are the proud K-Culture know-it-all of your friend group you can put your knowledge to the test and even learn some new interesting facts to surprise your friends with by jumping between sections of your choice.To maximize your learning, we’ve included the following in every section!- Scannable Codes For YouTube Clips : Let’s see how Koreans do it in real life! Simply scan the codes with your smartphone and you will be taken to amazing YouTube clips.- Must-See Korean Dramas and Movies: We’ve carefully selected a list of titles that can help you further appreciate the topic.- Must-Know Terms and People : We’ve marked important Korean terms with Bold and Italics so you can use them as a study aid!By the time you’ve finished the last chapter, you will have learned so much about Korea, including all the minute details! (E.g., Why do Koreans love sitting on the floor? Why is it rude to pour drinks with one hand?)An added bonus is that Korean dramas, movies, and K-Pop music videos and lyrics will mean so much more the next time you see them (Hey, you will have the ability to accurately identify all the Korean drama clichés)! Also, if someone compliments you for having a “small face,” you will know that the correct way to respond is saying “Thank you.”Now let’s start this book with an example of “Bbali Bbali” culture - hurry up and start reading! Read more

This first book on Kim Jong Un’s increasingly powerful sister, tapped to be his successor, offers jaw-dropping insights into the latest generation of North Korea’s secretive and murderous dynasty. The first woman ever to issue the threat of a nuclear weapons strike is not even officially a head of state. Kim Yo Jong is the sister of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and, as their murderous regime’s chief propagandist, internal administrator, and foreign policymaker, she is the most powerful woman in North Korean history. Cruel but charming, she threatens and insults foreign leaders with sardonic wit, issuing proclamations and denunciations in her own name, a first for any woman in the Korean royal family.  She memorably called the South Korean Defense Minister “a senseless and scum-like guy” before going on to promise South Korea “a miserable fate little short of total destruction and ruin”. A princess by birth with great expectations for her macabre kingdom, she was brought up to believe it is her mission to reunite North Korea with the South or die trying. She’s ruthless and incredibly dangerous.  The Sister, written by Sung-Yoon Lee, a scholar of Korean and East Asian studies and a specialist on North Korea, is a fascinating, authoritative account of the mysterious world of North Korea and its ruling dynasty—a family whose lust for power entails the brutal repression of civilians, a missile program that can reach the continental US, and the constant threat of global havoc. Read more

If you want to discover the captivating history of Korea, then keep reading... Free History BONUS Inside! The Korean Peninsula today is divided into two, but there was a time when this peninsula was divided into many states. Over the course of time, and besieged by expansive transient dynasties outside of this modest piece of land, many clans and tribes overran their lands. Of all those malicious and greedy potential overlords, none managed to prevail. The soil is rich with the blood of the people who made Korea happen, and it is the Korean people who rose victorious among the maelstrom of dead empires led by hated tyrants and wars fought by people in lands far beyond their own. The Koreans are survivors, known for their persistence and courage. In History of Korea: A Captivating Guide to Korean History, Including Events Such as the Mongol Invasions, the Split into North and South, and the Korean War, you will discover topics such as Land of the BearThe Dragon of the East SeaDynasties Rise and FallThe Joseon Dynasty of GoryeoForeign InvasionsMerchants, Farmers, and ForeignersFrom Independence to AnnexationKorea at WarNorth KoreaSouth KoreaAnd much, much more!So if you want to learn more about the history of Korea, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button! Read more

“Magnificent!” (South China Morning Post)“A wonderful read!” (JoongAng Daily News)“The scope is truly vast!” (Seoul Magazine)“Like a prelude to Shogun!"(StrategyPage.com)“A feast!” (Shogun-ki)In May of 1592, Japanese dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent a 158,800-man army of invasion from Kyushu to Pusan on Korea’s southern tip. His objective: to conquer Korea, then China, and then the whole of Asia. The resulting seven years of fighting, known in Korea as imjin waeran, the “Imjin invasion,” after the year of the water dragon in which it began, dwarfed contemporary conflicts in Europe and was one of the most devastating wars to grip East Asia in the past thousand years.The Imjin War is the most comprehensive account ever published in English of this cataclysmic event, so little known in the West. It begins with the political and cultural background of Korea, Japan and China, explores the diplomatic impasse that led to the war, describes every major incident and battle from 1592 to 1598 and introduces a fascinating cast of characters along the way. There is Hideyoshi, hosting garden parties as his armies march toward Beijing; Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin, emerging from a prison cell to take on the Japanese navy with just thirteen ships; Chinese commander Zhao Chengxun, suffering defeat after promising to “scatter the Japanese to the four winds”; the courtesan Chu Non-gae, luring a samurai into her arms and then jumping into the Nam River with him locked in her embrace.One nation fighting to expand, another to survive. Shockwaves extending across China and beyond. The Imjin War is an epic tale of grand perspective and intimate detail of an upheaval that would shape East Asia for centuries to come. Read more

A photographic journey through the architecture of North Korea's “model” utopia.The story of Pyongyang is unique even in the annals of model cities and modernist utopias. Entirely rebuilt after the Korean War, North Korea's capital city was planned and fully implemented to embody a single ideological vision. This extraordinary, richly illustrated book takes readers on a photographic journey through the architecture of North Korea's “model” utopia.Built as an ideological guide for its citizens, Pyongyang displays a unique architectural cohesion and narrative. From the city's large-scale monumental axes to its symbolic sports halls and experimental housing, Model City offers offers comprehensive visual access to Pyongyang's restricted buildings. The architecture of Pyongyang exists within a culture that favors construction and renewal over historical preservation, and in recent years many buildings have been redeveloped to remove interior features or render facades unrecognizable. Often kitschy, colorful, and dramatic, Pyongyang's architecture makes it difficult to distinguish between reality and theater. As befits a culture that has carefully crafted its own narrative, the backdrop of each photograph in Model City has been replaced with a color gradient, evoking the pastel skies of North Korea's propaganda posters.Model City features two hundred color illustrations of buildings rarely seen by non-North Koreans, diagrams and architectural drawings that reveal the planning behind the city's elaborate symbolism, and texts by experts on Korean architecture—including an excerpt from On Architecture by Kim Jong-Il, father of the current leader Kim Jong-un. The authors' research has been supported by Koryo Studio and Korea Cities Federation. Read more

This book examines the contested re-readings of “Korea” in early Chinese historical records and their influence on the formation of Korean-ness in later periods. The earliest written records on “Koreans” are found in Chinese documents produced during the Han dynasty, from the third century BCE to the third century CE. Since then, these early Chinese records have been used as primary sources for writing early Korean history in Korea, China, and Japan. This study analyzes the various reinterpretations and utilizations of these early records that became more diverse by the late nineteenth century, when the reconstruction of ancient history became a crucial part of the formation of Korean national consciousness. Korea’s modern historiography was complicated by a thirty-five year colonial experience (1910–1945) under Japan. During this period, Japanese colonial scholars attempted to depict Korean history as stagnant, heteronymous, and replete with factional strife, while Korean nationalist historians strove to construct an indigenous Korean nation in order to mobilize Koreans’ national consciousness and recover political sovereignty. While focused on Korea and Northeast Asia, the links between historiography and political ideology investigated in this study are pertinent to historians in general. Read more

A haunting account of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign   Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields—except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has gone undercover as a missionary and a teacher. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them English, all under the watchful eye of the regime. Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues—evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. As the weeks pass, she is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. At the same time, they offer Suki tantalizing glimpses of their private selves—their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. She in turn begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own—at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. But when Kim Jong-il dies, and the boys she has come to love appear devastated, she wonders whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged. Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves." Read more

In this beautifully illustrated journal based on a TV documentary, writer, comedian and world traveller Michael Palin journeys to North Korea, offering a glimpse of life inside the world's most secretive country, uncovering surprises and making friends along the way. In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin ventured into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, camera crew in tow, to gain a glimpse of life in the most notoriously secretive and cut-off nation on earth. His resulting two-part documentary for Channel 5 fascinated millions and won universal plaudits. Now he shares the journal he meticulously kept during his trip, in which he describes his experiences in a country wholly unlike any other he has ever visited: a country where you will find the Tallest Unoccupied Building in the World; where the residents of Pyongyang awake every morning to the strains of 'Where Are You, Dear General?', broadcast from speakers across the city; and where there are fifteen approved styles of haircut. He chronicles a journey of stark contrasts that takes in a gleamingly modern capital complete with triumphal statues and arches one day, and a countryside that has barely changed in decades on another. He travels to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, to a centuries-old Confucian academy, and to the heart of North Korea's exquisitely beautiful mountains and lakes. He recounts conversations with official guides, teachers, propaganda artists, farmers and soldiers in which mutual incomprehension and shared humanity are constantly intermingled. And he muses on what makes people tick under a regime that to outsiders seems so utterly alien and so grimly authoritarian. Written with Palin's trademark warmth and wit, and illustrated with beautiful colour photographs throughout, Palin's journal offers a rare insight into the North Korea behind the headlines. Read more

The perennial graphic novel about a “hermit country,” with a new cover and an introduction by Gore VerbinskiGuy Delisle’s Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea is the graphic novel that made his career, an international bestseller for more than ten years. Delisle became one of the few Westerners to be allowed access to the fortress-like country when he was working in animation for a French company.While living in the nation’s capital for two months on a work visa, Delisle observed everything he was allowed to see of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered, bringing a sardonic and skeptical perspective on a place rife with propaganda. As a guide to the country, Delisle is a non-believer with a keen eye for the humor and tragedy of dictatorial whims, expressed in looming architecture and tiny, omnipresent photos of the president. The absurd vagaries of everyday life become fodder for a frustrated animator’s musings as boredom and censorship sink in. Delisle himself is the ideal foil for North Korean spin, the grumpy outsider who brought a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 with him into the totalitarian nation.Pyongyang is an informative, personal, and accessible look at a dangerous and enigmatic country. Read more