The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia

But while the people in charge have been ruthless and successful in holding on to power, Lankov goes on to argue that this cannot continue forever, since the old system is slowly falling apart. In the long run, with or without reform, the regime is unsustainable. Lankov contends that reforms, if attempted, will trigger a dramatic implosion of the regime. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. Its leaders are not ideological zealots or madmen, but perhaps the best practitioners of Machiavellian politics that can be found in the modern world. After providing an accessible history of the nation, he turns his focus to what North Korea is, what its leadership thinks, and how its people cope with living in such an oppressive and poor place. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive.. They will not prolong its existence. A living political fossil, it clings to e

The book's strength is its detailed possible scenarios for a post-Kim Jong Un DPRK. What will the north be like without Kim? The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia by Andrei Lankov was written in 2013, two years after the Supreme Leader Marshal Kim Jong Un succeeded his late father, the Dear Leader Comrade General Kim Jong Il. Lankov was a Soviet-era exchange student who studied in Pyongyang and his fluency in Korean endeared him to his teachers and gave him access to the North Korean public. This book was unlike other modern accounts of the DPRK which I have read, in that it painted thoroughly dismal portraits of the future of the North after the inevitable downfall of its totalitarian system of government. I have read--a. Good read I must admit it takes real mental gymnastics to wrap your head around the fact that a soviet national (from Leningrad) wrote a book on north Korea that is decidedly pro-capitalist. But past that, its an excellent overview of the DPRK, lacking only in the very latest of details. Kim Jong Nam went from simply being the bad sheep of the family to occupying a suite 6 feet underground. I suspect it is impossible to produce a true current edition on DPRK. The changes are simply to fast to keep current.The basic thesis of the book, that N. Korea is not crazy and on the brink of collapse, but rather quite calculating and stable, is depress. A Rational and Sensitive Look at North Korea by a True Expert J. V. Simson . For anyone interested in the history and politics of North Korea, this is an essential read. Andrei Lankov is an expert, in the best sense of that word, on the history, culture, and politics of this rogue nation. He has lived in N. Korea, and has experienced it both first hand and at a distance, as a cultural and political analyst. His prose is clear and convincing, his arguments both analytic and sensitive.Lankov explains how N. Korea took an increasingly extreme path in the form of Communist dictatorship, even after its allies, Russia and later China, opened up to a modified capitalist economic model. He describes the early eco