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Loading... Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim…by Bradley K. MartinNone. A very thorough, at times depressing, look into the North Korean regime from the very beginning. Worth a read if you're interested in that sort of thing. ( )An interesting and enlightening book whose true effect was heavily clouded by a confusing lack of organization. The author bounces rapidly between history, personal interpretations of events, recollections of his own travel to the country, and defector testimony. Each chapter is very loosely tied together around a single point, so sometimes it's hard to follow the argument. Making this worse is the fact that the chapter titles are useless for determining a chapter's contents. It's something that's worth a second read through if only to pull all of the information from it. Most detailed book on N.K. that I have read. Chilling and powerful in its detail. A highly informative book that takes you on a journey of a long-term view of North Korea, its history, formation, leadership, state of economy, daily life and international relations. The author conducted multiple defector interviews that speak into each of these subjects. A few months ago, I reread 1984 and wondered whether such a society could survive. The answer is yes. Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il have done it. The personality cult is indeed a cult. It's like the whole nation is David Koresh's compound. We are not going to know the full truth about North Korean life until it falls, but until that happy day, Martin has set the standard for books about this crazy country. He has synthesized everything from the ghost-written memoirs of Kim Il-Sung to the testimony of former concentration camp prisoners to produce a definitive study that delves into everything from teenage gangs to the sex life of Kim Jong-Il to future prospects for North Korea. He reaches the depressing conclusion that Kim Jong-Il might indeed be the North Korean Gorbachev, which tells you a lot. Cinephiles will be interested in how Kim Jong-Il got his start in running North Korean film (and opera, too). no reviews | add a review
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