This book is especially important now with Kim Il Sung's death, the ending of the nuclear crisis between North Korea and the United States, and the obscured emergence of a successor regime ostensibly headed by Kim Il Jong, Sung's son. Suh's book investigates the impact of Kim Il Sung on the history [...]
Concentrating on the years 1953-64, this history describes how North Korea became more despotic even as other Communist countries underwent de-Stalinization. The author's principal new source is the Hungarian diplomatic archives, which contain extensive reporting on Kim Il Sung and North Korea, tho[...]