Best North Korean History Books
Here you will get Best North Korean History Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Girl with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea
Author: by Hyeonseo Lee
Published at: William Collins; Reprint edition (May 10, 2016)
ISBN: 978-0007554850
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAn extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom. As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime.
Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life.
Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told the best on the planet? Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.
2. In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
Author: by Yeonmi Park
Published at: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (September 27, 2016)
ISBN: 978-0143109747
I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea. Yeonmi Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape.
Park’s family was loving and close-knit, but life in North Korea was brutal, practically medieval. Park would regularly go without food and was made to believe that, Kim Jong Il, the country’s dictator, could read her mind. After her father was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for trading on the black-market, a risk he took in order to provide for his wife and two young daughters, Yeonmi and her family were branded as criminals and forced to the cruel margins of North Korean society.
With thirteen-year-old Park suffering from a botched appendectomy and weighing a mere sixty pounds, she and her mother were smuggled across the border into China. I wasn’t dreaming of freedom when I escaped from North Korea. I didn’t even know what it meant to be free.
3. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Author: by Barbara Demick
Published at: Random House; Reprint edition (September 21, 2010)
ISBN: 978-0385523912
An eye-opening account of life inside North Koreaa closed world of increasing global importancehailed as a tour de force of meticulous reporting (The New York Review of Books) NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST In this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen yearsa 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 todayan 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.
4. Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
Author: by Blaine Harden
Published at: Penguin Books; Illustrated edition (March 26, 2013)
ISBN: 978-0143122913
With a New ForewordThe heartwrenching New York Times bestseller about the only known person born inside a North Korean prison camp to have escaped. North Korea’s political prison camps have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps.
No one born and raised in these camps is known to have escaped. No one, that is, except Shin Dong-hyuk. In Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state through the story of Shin’s shocking imprisonment and his astounding getaway.
Shin knew nothing of civilized existencehe saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother. The late Dear Leader Kim Jong Il was recognized throughout the world, but his country remains sealed as his third son and chosen heir, Kim Jong Eun, consolidates power.
Few foreigners are allowed in, and few North Koreans are able to leave. North Korea is hungry, bankrupt, and armed with nuclear weapons. It is also a human rights catastrophe. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people work as slaves in its political prison camps.
5. The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat
Author: by Bob Drury
Published at: Grove Press; First Trade Paper edition (November 3, 2009)
ISBN: 978-0802144515
A “gut-clenching and meticulously detailed” (USA Today) account from the Korean War and how Captain William Barber led 246 courageous Marines of the Seventh Marine Regiment in the perilous defense of Fox Hill. November 1950, the Korean Peninsula: After General MacArthur ignores Mao’s warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his 10,000 First Division Marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir.
Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge that will need to be held open at all costs. The mission is handed to Captain William Barber and the 234 Marines of Fox Company, a courageous but undermanned unit of the First Marines.
Barber and his men climb seven miles of frozen terrain to a rocky promontory overlooking the pass, where they will endure four days and five nights of nearly continuous Chinese attempts to take Fox Hill. Amid the relentless violence, three-quarters of Fox’s Marines are killed, wounded, or captured.
6. Made in North Korea: Graphics From Everyday Life in the DPRK
Author: by Nick Bonner
Published at: Phaidon Press (October 2, 2017)
ISBN: 978-0714873503
North Korea uncensored and unfiltered ordinary life in the world’s most secretive nation, captured in never-before-seen ephemera. Made in North Korea uncovers the fascinating and surprisingly beautiful graphic culture of North Korea – from packaging to hotel brochures, luggage tags to tickets for the world-famous mass games.
From his base in Beijing, Bonner has been running tours into North Korea for over twenty years, and along the way collecting graphic ephemera. He has amassed thousands of items that, as a collection, provide an extraordinary and rare insight into North Korea’s state-controlled graphic output, and the lives of ordinary North Koreans.
7. 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
Author: by Captivating History
Published at: Captivating History (January 14, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1647483753
If you want to discover the captivating history of Korea, then keep reading… 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 asLand 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!
8. North Korea's Armed Forces: On the Path of Songun
Author: by Stijn Mitzer
Published at: Helion and Company; Illustrated edition (January 19, 2021)
ISBN: 978-1910777145
North Korea’s Armed Forces: On the path of Songun seeks to bring order and coherence to the chaotic state of affairs in the intelligence community of North Korea-watchers, as well as to disprove the much-echoed stance that there is little to fear from the DPRK by providing information on a plethora of never-before described weapons systems and modernization programs.
North Korea’s Armed Forces maps the most important events from the inconclusive ceasefire struck at the end of the Korean War, throughout the Cold War until modern day, and an especially heavy emphasis is placed on the current status of the Korean People’s Army by examining their wealth of indigenously designed weaponry.
In the course of the book not only will many of the Korean People’s Army’s most secret projects and tactics be unveiled, but also new light will be shed on the deadly flare-ups between the North and the South, and novel evidence on tragic incidents such as the Cheonan sinking and Yeongpyeong bombing of 2010 is brought forth.
9. Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite
Author: by Suki Kim
Published at: Crown; Illustrated edition (October 13, 2015)
ISBN: 978-0307720665
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 fieldsexcept 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 colleaguesevangelical Christian missionaries who don’t know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn’t share their faith.
10. Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
Author: by Guy Delisle
Published at: Drawn and Quarterly; 2nd edition (October 2, 2018)
ISBN: 978-1770463370
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.
11. The Future Is Asian
Author: by Parag Khanna
Published at: Simon & Schuster (February 5, 2019)
ISBN: 978-1501196263
In the 19th century, the world was Europeanized. In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, in the 21st century, the world is being Asianized. The Asian Century is even bigger than you think. Far greater than just China, the new Asian system taking shape is a multi-civilizational order spanning Saudi Arabia to Japan, Russia to Australia, Turkey to Indonesialinking five billion people through trade, finance, infrastructure, and diplomatic networks that together represent 40 percent of global GDP.
China has taken a lead in building the new Silk Roads across Asia, but it will not lead it alone. Rather, Asia is rapidly returning to the centuries-old patterns of commerce, conflict, and cultural exchange that thrived long before European colonialism and American dominance.
Asians will determine their own futureand as they collectively assert their interests around the world, they will determine ours as well. There is no more important region of the world for us to better understand than Asia and thus we cannot afford to keep getting Asia so wrong.
12. Korea: The Impossible Country: South Korea's Amazing Rise from the Ashes: The Inside Story of an Economic, Political and Cultural Phenomenon
Author: by Daniel Tudor
Published at: Tuttle Publishing; Revised, Expanded ed. edition (November 13, 2018)
ISBN: 978-0804846394
“Daniel Tudor covers all the important issues, yet does not simply tell the more familiar stories, but looks deeper and wider to give the full story of Korea today.” Martin Uden, Former British Ambassador to South KoreaIn just fifty years, South Korea has transformed itself from a failed state, ruined and partitioned by war and decades of colonial rule, into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries.
How was it able to achieve this with no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule? Who are the Koreans and how did they accomplish this second Asian miracle? Through a comprehensive exploration of Korean history, culture and society, and interviews with dozens of experts, celebrated journalist Daniel Tudor seeks answers to these and many other fascinating questions.
In Korea: The Impossible Country, Tudor touches on topics as diverse as shamanism, clan-ism, the dilemma posed by North Korea, and the growing international appeal of South Korean pop culture. This new edition has been updated with additional materials on recent events, including the impeachment of Park Geun-hye and the sinking of the Sewol Ferry.
13. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
Author: by David Halberstam
Published at: Hachette Books; Illustrated edition (September 1, 2008)
ISBN: 978-0786888627
“In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home.”-The New York Times David Halberstam’s magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War.
Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America’s postwar foreign policy. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise.
He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures-Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order.
14. Becoming Kim Jong Un: A Former CIA Officer's Insights into North Korea's Enigmatic Young Dictator
Author: by Jung H. Pak
Published at: Ballantine Books; Illustrated edition (April 28, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1984819727
A groundbreaking account of the rise of North Korea’s Kim Jong Unfrom his nuclear ambitions to his summits with President Donald J. Trumpby a leading American expert Excellent … Former CIA analyst Jung H. Pak cuts through the regime’s opacity and the fog of gossip.
Los Angeles Times [Becoming Kim Jong Un] could be the most definitive account of North Korea’s supreme leader. Newsweek When Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea following his father’s death in 2011, predictions about his imminent fall were rife.
North Korea was isolated, poor, unable to feed its people, and clinging to its nuclear program for legitimacy. Surely this twentysomething with a bizarre haircut and no leadership experience would soon be usurped by his elders. Instead, the opposite happened.
Now in his midthirties, Kim Jong Un has solidified his grip on his country and brought the United States and the region to the brink of war. Still, we know so little about himor how he rules. Enter former CIA analyst Jung Pak, whose brilliant Brookings Institution essay The Education of Kim Jong Un cemented her status as the go-to authority on the calculating young leader.
15. The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
Author: by Chol-hwan Kang
Published at: Basic Books; unknown edition (August 24, 2005)
ISBN: 978-0465011049
“Destined to become a classic” (Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking), this harrowing memoir of life inside North Korea was the first account to emerge from the notoriously secretive country – and it remains one of the most terrifying.
Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea’s other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for “re-education.” Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
Sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok when he was nine years old, Kang observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations for ten years. In 1992, he escaped to South Korea, where he found God and now advocates for human rights in North Korea.
16. History of East Asia: A Captivating Guide to the History of China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan
Author: by Captivating History
Published at: Captivating History (September 12, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1647489229
If you want to discover the captivating history of East Asia, then keep reading… Four captivating manuscripts in one book:History of China: A Captivating Guide to Chinese History, Including Events Such as the First Emperor of China, the Mongol Conquests of Genghis Khan, the Opium Wars, and the Cultural RevolutionHistory of Japan: A Captivating Guide to Japanese History, Including Events Such as the Genpei War, Mongol Invasions, Battle of Tsushima, and Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and NagasakiHistory of Korea: A Captivating Guide to Korean History, Including Events Such as the Mongol Invasions, the Split into North and South, and the Korean WarHistory of Taiwan: A Captivating Guide to Taiwanese History and the Relationship with the People’s Republic of ChinaHere are just some of the topics covered in part 1 of this book:The Land of the Yellow EmperorImperial China EmergesThe Supremacy of the Han, 202 BCE220 CEThe Golden Age: The Tang Dynasty, 618907The Song Dynasty, 9601279Kublai Khan: The Yuan Dynasty, 12711368The Great Ming Dynasty, 13681644The Rise of the Qing, 16361912Revolutionary MadnessThe Republic of China to the People’s Republic of ChinaAnd much, much more!
