by Bradley K. Martin
|
| List Price: | $19.95 |
| Amazon Price: | $13.57 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: | $6.38 (32%) |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $11.40 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
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.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 The standard reference, 2008-11-10
This is the most comprehensive and insightful book about North Korea currently in the market. Martin has extensively researched and traveled the country. If you've been there, or you'd like to take a trip from the comfort of your armchair, Martin's book is the way to go.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
An Excellent Introduction to North Korea, 2008-09-18
I became interested in North Korea at the beginning of summer '08 and looked around amazon to find which book is the most highly regarded, well reviewed, popular and otherwise definitive. This one fit the bill.
After purchasing it from a local bookstore (I couldn't wait to have it shipped) I spent the entire summer reading it and regaling my family and friends with curious tales from North Korea. I won't repeat the book's summary--you can get that in other reviews. I'll just say that I came to this book with very little background about North Korea (as I imagine most Americans have) and came out with a pretty good understanding of the history and the current status of the Hermit kingdom. The book didn't exactly turn me into an expert on Korea but it did provide a very thorough background to North Korean history and current events.
One of the strongest points in favor of this book is that it is well written. The writing style is strikingly objective, engaging and coherent. I guess the decades that Martin has worked as a journalist have paid off. He treats the subject with fairness and compassion--not a rose-eyed, everything is fine, we're all the same blah blah blah approach but an approach that allows the reader to see a bit of the big picture and to understand where the sick horrific society of North Korea came from.
As Martin writes in the book on a number of occasions, part of what makes his study unique is his use of defector testimonies. Much of the book is devoted to individuals and their own personal stories. Through groupings of defectors with similar experiences, he describes North Korean society, piece by piece. Martin brings the arguments of those who criticize such an approach but the reader will invariably side with him--that defectors offer a unique, largely objective and invaluable viewpoint on the truth about what is and has been going on in North Korea.
As other reviewers have noted, the book is huge. It took me the whole summer to read but I was sad to finish it. It opened my eyes, not only to North Korea per se, but to humanity and what we can become--or be reduced to.
When one reads about North Korea, one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. The leader cult is ridiculous to the outside world yet hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are being tortured and killed for making even the slightest hint of doubting its veracity. And the "good" North Koreans are left to starve.
(One point for those that have not and will not read the book: the famine that devastated the country was not an "act of God." Radical adherence to Kim Il Sung's farming techniques--stripping hillsides bare without terracing, trying to use fertilizer to farm where it is not really tenable--and utter refusal to cooperate with the outside world (Kim's juche ideology) brought about the crisis and prevented its resolution. Martin bases this claim on defectors who saw the effects directly as well as expert analysis.)
The country is weird but there is more to it than just that--I guess you'll have to read it to find out!
PS Like every review, I can't just say nice things about the book. Some chapters were too long, some observations inconsequential, some speculation not sufficiently backed up with argument and some sentences were just weird! But if any book can deserve 5 stars, this one does.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
The definitive book on the DRPK, 2008-09-10
Mr. Martin's book is one of the most informative books on a country that I've ever read. His written is very informative, but does not overload you with so much information in one setting. He provides a great insight into the very private lives of the Kims. I reccommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a better insight into the Hermit Kingdom.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, 2008-04-23
This book provides exceptional insight into the isolated country of North Korea. With his objective approach, Bradley combines factual data, interviews with North Koreans and descriptions of his own personal accounts to show the world a detailed look into this mysterious country. A must read!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Wonderfully detailed and well-written from start to finish., 2008-03-02
One of the most comprehensive and detailed books ever written about North Korea. I found that while the book was great to read on its own, it helped to have the background knowledge of the development of the South behind you to really understand a lot of what has driven the North Koreans from potentially prosperous into a maddeningly disastrous state. Martin's obvious heartfelt interest for the North Koreans comes through with his writing, as does the fact that he really did his homework.
One thing of note is that if you're going to read the book in conjunction, read Cummings' "Koreas Place in the Sun", Obderdorfer's "The Two Koreas", and Becker's "Rogue Regime. While much of the information is similar, each offers smaller details that definitely added to the enjoyment of Martin's benchmark of a book for North Korea watchers.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|