by Jasper Becker
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Product Description
What happens when a dictator wins absolute power and isolates a nation from the outside world? In a nightmare of political theory stretched to madness and come to life, North Korea's Kim Jong Il made himself into a living god, surrounded by lies and flattery and beyond criticism. As over two million of his subjects starved to death, Kim Jong Il roamed between palaces staffed by beautiful girls and stocked with expensive international delicacies. Outside, the steel mills shut down, the trains stopped running, the power went out, and the hospitals ran out of medicine. When the population threatened to revolt, Kim imposed a reign of terror, deceived the United Nations, and plundered the country's dwindling resources to become a nuclear power. Now this tiny bankrupt nation is using her nuclear capability to blackmail the United States.
Veteran correspondent Jasper Becker takes us inside one of the most secretive countries in the world, exposing the internal chaos, blind faith, rampant corruption, and terrifying cruelty of its rulers. Becker details the vain efforts to change North Korea by actors inside and outside the country and the dangers this highly volatile country continues to pose. This unique land, ruled by one family's megalomania and paranoia, seems destined to survive and linger on, a menace to its own people and to the rest of the world. But should the nations of the world allow this regime to survive? That's the question with which this book concludes.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 The Worst and the Best of the Nation-State System, 2008-12-07
This is the worst book ever written on North Korea: ... that is, except, for all the rest. Had Becker not proceeded with his ideological blinkers in the "on" position, organized the book better, and had it edited more carefully, this could have been not just a good book, but perhaps a great one.
The history of the Kim regime given here is first rate, but the bizarre introduction with the barely credible scenario spinning of a nuclear attack from the north, stretches credulity and begs the question of what the kind of scholarship this book really was intended to be: Was it intended as be just another anti-North Korea polemic and screed, or was it intended as a piece of sound political science and history? For this reader at least, even at the end of the book that question remained an open one.
Since the Kim regime is such an exceedingly easy target to "pick on," painting a grotesque and depressing picture of that reality, is insufficient in itself to raise the book to the level of serious history or serious political science. However, carefully tracing the history of the development of the country of North Korea - as an afterthought of Stalinism - to Kim's "cult of personality" could not have been more informative, more revealing, or even better done.
Among other things, and certainly in deep relief, it demonstrates the utter artificiality of the concept of a nation state itself: The Kim Il Sungs, Stalins, Pol Pots, Saddam Husseins and Hitlers simply represent one end of a spectrum that begins with cults of personality and weakly justifiable racial ideologies and ends with less obvious and less transparent nations organized around equally tribal, economic and religious myths. Certainly the best of nations are different only in degree and not in kind from the monstrosity that is North Korea.
Once the book stops its implicit backhanded self-congratulatory stance of how great our Western democracies are in comparison to North Korea, and come to the full realization of how small the overall objective distance really is between these monstrosities and the best the nation-state has to offer, only then can we take a healthy and sober pause and say there is still work to be done, not just in the North Koreas of the world but in all of the "so called" free nations as well.
Three Stars
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Poorly organized, hard to follow, 2008-04-28
Becker provides a relatively detailed exposition on the history of Korea and how the reign of Kim Jong Il came to be. Unfortunately, the book lacks a coherent organization and is, at times, difficult to follow. It's almost as if he had a set of anecdotes he wanted to include in the book and hastily organized them into chapters. One page he's talking about Italian chefs being flown in with pizza ovens to teach Italian cooking, then suddenly there is discussion of Stalin and Mao.
It's unfortunate because there is good information in this book (I think) and it's an interesting read, but it could really benefit from being written chronologically and just having a better organization overall.
Personally I wouldn't recommend it.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 An excellent examination of the politics and life in The Hermit Nation, 2007-12-06
Jasper Becker does an excellent job detailing the rise to power of Kim il Sung and his struggles with the totally psychotic Kim Jong Il.
The book is well written and explores the horrific conditions North Koreans endure as well as the Machiavellian manner that Jong Il treats those close to him.
Becker derives most of his information from interviews with North Koreans who have escaped, but also uses military intel and his own travels there to craft a startling picture.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in NK (I'd also be remiss if I didn't ferverently recommend "Aquariums of Pyongyang, one of the finest books ever written on this subject.)
One caveat comes to mind however: The opening chapter examining what might occur in case of a military strike against NK is just down right hokey, and I'd implore the reader to carry on as it gets much better.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
The wacky regime of Kim Jong Il, 2007-11-12
I like the comment from one of the previous reviewers calling Becker a neocon. Well, here are the facts as Becker puts it. We have a dynastic Communist regime that invents history and is pursuing WMD such as nuclear bombs and delivery vehicles like incontinental ballistic missles. However this same regime cannot even feed its people. Still it races to acquire these arms. Ridley answers these questions. The regime will blackmail the rest of the world with these weapons. Since the mid 1990s, literally 2-3 million North Koreans starved to death. Those are facts and realities and the West has to face them.
Becker provides the information and states that the only reality will be regime change. Since the Kim regime will probably not go willingly, it will be bloody. However, the option is to buy this regime off (a la the Barbary Pirates-even though that didn't work well). The West does not have many options. I wish we could put the problem where it started-with the Russians who gave the DPRK the nuclear reactors, the Chinese who still support the regime, and their brothers the ROK who like to talk of a sunshine policy rather than cold hard facts.
This is a good read. However, I would like to comment that the reading could have been better organized. The flow of the book changes quite a bit in each chapter. That said, there is a lot of good info in this book.
0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 One-Sided and Ignorant Look at North Korea, 2007-08-29
Becker has written what is essentially an incredibly long-winded diatribe that is more riddled with assumptions and condemnations than fact. In spite of his years of experience as a foreign correspondent -- or perhaps because of it -- Becker demonstrates an almost utter lack of understanding about North Korea as a country, government and about North Koreans as a people. As he does not speak Korean, his research obviously did not include any Korean primary sources--except for those from North Korean defectors, who are notoriously conservative. It's certainly true that the North Korean government has dug itself into economic collapse and that millions of North Koreans are suffering. It's also true that North Koreans are watched over and sent away (most certainly to prison camps) if they misbehave or are considered disloyal. However, it is one things to report the problems of a country, the corruption in its government, and the suffering of its people from a balanced and well-researched perspective and quite another to lambaste that country with accusations when you neither have the background nor have done the research to warrant doing so. Readers who wish to learn about North Korea would be well-advised to pass on Becker's book and find one written by a Korea specialist who actually knows something about the country.
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