Customer Reviews

Kim Il-song's North Korea:

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My initial interest in North Korea grew due to a hobbyist's interest in adventure tourism. While exploring travelogues on the internet, I came across the reports of travellers who had braved the "road less travelled" to countries such as North Korea. I became curious to know more about this "renegade" country, especially with recent news reports of famine, political instability, and the precarious relationship between N.Korea and the USA. How could this small country of 22 million people cause such international consternation?

"Kim Il-Song's North Korea" answers many questions for the layperson about how North Korea has ended up where it is today. Hunter's book on North Korea is an exhaustive study of one of the most closed and reclusive societies on Earth.

The chapters are clearly organized and make for enjoyable reading. The information Hunter provides is extensive, and awakens the reader to interesting issues that most readers may not be aware of, such as family life, romance, the treatment of children, hooliganism, military life, the fanatical cult of Kim Il-Song, and North Korea's bizarre view of itself in relation to the world, among other subjects.

The book does not, however, address major geopolitical issues such as North Korea's nuclear program or the ongoing food production problems and resulting civil unrest. This is perhaps just as well since those items can be retrieved through various mainstream sources. Hunter's book provides the gift of much harder-to-find info. It is more of an intimiate look at general life, namely how the average person copes with life under an oppressive, invasive, paranoid, fanatical government and belief system.

All in all, Hunter's book is a good read for those interested in Asian politics, general sociology, or those curious about this enigmatic Orwellian state. Highly recommended.

I,m researcher North Korean politics from 25 years . I visited north Korea two times in 1986 ,1987 . I wrote book about Noeth Korea in Poland in 1995 y. and 30 articles . The reports of Helen Louise Hunter are perfectional . For me very important is comparison north korean communist system in to Poland and Central Eastern Europe . The picture phillars of north Korean political , ideological and economical life. very significant is analysis of role Leader in n. korean poltical system.I visited lot places in North Korea , had occasion met lot of high top poltician. currently i have occasion met often with DPRofK ambassador to Poland Kim Pyong Il , younger brother of Kim Jong Il . The book is the treasury informations about North Korea. The Language of book is clear. The book is perfectionally written.For me , general thesis book are by research reached . Helen Louise Hunter book must be readen by every student or resarcher north korean affairs. My task is prepared polish issue this book.

This book is a fascinating account of North Korea under Kim Il-sung. I learned many things, such as his emphasis on the family. The trouble with this book is that we do not know if it describes North Korea today, or just North Korea in the past. But the description is fascinating.

As a high school student reading the book, I had expected a dry study full of politics. Although you won't find a book that gives you a more educational look at North Korea, Ms Hunter's book actually kept me interested all the way through. Amazing facts that had been completly unknown to the average American are now exposed in her informative CIA study. I think that it would be an excellent textbook for the high school and college student. And I would also recommend it to anyone who is interested in Asia or cult societys. I really liked it.

Mrs. Hunter has written what I consider to be one of the most fascinating and absorbing books I have ever read. This in depth but readable depiction of North Korea brings us up close to a society that is quite foreign to most of us. The book, while imparting many political facts that were classified until recently, also provides a very human glimpse into the lives of people who live in this cult society. I would recomend the book not only to those specifically interested in North Korea, but also to anyone who enjoys reading at all.

As another reviewer appropriately noted in assessing this book, "Kim Il-song's North Korea" is now 25+ years out of date. Because of this, Helen-Louise Hunter's study--edited down from a longer, classified report that she prepared while working at the Central Intelligence Agency--offers little meat for assessing the personal style and leadership track record of Kim Chong-il, who succeeded his father--Kim Il-song--as the absolutist leader of North Korea in 1994. Still, the book is a must-read for any scholar or journalist seeking to estimate the likelihood of future social collapse and regime change and/or to establish how much policy change Kim Chong-il has initiated.

The raw material of "Kim Il-song's North Korea" was meticulously culled from thousands of intelligence reports, most from defectors, which documented life in the North Korea of the mid-1970s, and this material is presented in a descriptive, generally non-judgmental manner. To the degree that any period in North Korea can be called a golden age, it was the years covered here. P'yongyang's social contract with the populace--the government will meet your basic economic and welfare needs if you cede to us all decisionmaking authority and forego any personal liberties--was basically intact at this time. So too were the country's industrial infrastructure and its tight controls on the physical movement of the citizenry, and serious questions of political stability rarely arose. Outrage over Kim Chong-il's leadership style had not yet crystallized and Kim Il-song was seen as a demigod who had helped liberate Korea from Japan's colonial occupation.

As even the most casual observer of North Korea today knows, the relative political and economic stability of the 1970s are long past, and for a dynamic understanding of North Korea in the 21st century, "Kim Il-song's North Korea" cannot stand alone. Neither, however, can we mine the full richness of more current books, including the gripping testaments of defectors, without referring back to Hunter's pathbreaking work.

A book strictly for North Korea specialists. Certainly, as its reviews and the book-cover blurbs indicate a "unique" study. However what none of them say is; (1) this is strictly a basic socio-economic or sociology-type study; and (2) most tellingly, it may well be "a recently declassified CIA study", but what they are not saying is that this study was written in 1980-81 and not updated for a 1999-2000 book publication release. It is a study written in 1980 and is thereby utilising 1970s material. In consequence we have a book about Kim Il-Sung's North Korea of the 1970s. We are reading about conditions in the North Korea of 25+ years ago.

Material content and style presentation is straightforward and "just the facts". Nothing laid out in this book will surprise anyone who is familiar with Communist bloc social control systems. There is no analysis or extrapolation worth mentioning from the socio-economic presentation. Key aspects even within that range e.g. Party-Army-Population relationships are not examined in any analytical way.

This is a quite specific piece set in a quite specific time frame. It is a read only for those with real interest in North Korea. It is, at best, a "background" information source. As one reviewer has alluded to, the only real purpose of any description of conditions and life in the North Korea of the 1970s, is to give us an indication of the seeds of the mismanagement and decline that has subsequently unfolded. The same mixture of issues that have brought down, principally from within, other Communist regimes, in this case merely with a particular North Korean spin to it.

Thus as a book - a very particular snapshot. In its own right, as well as in terms of content.

A book strictly for North Korea specialists. Certainly, as its reviews and the book-cover blurbs indicate a "unique" study. However what none of them say is; (1) this is strictly a basic socio-economic study; and (2) most tellingly, it may well be "from a declassified CIA study", but what they are not saying is that this study was written in 1980-81 and not updated etc for a 1999-2000 book publication release. Thus a study written in 1980 is dealing with 1970s material. Thus we have Kim Il-Sung's North Korea of the 1970s. We are reading about North Korea of 25+ years ago.

Material content and style presentation is straightforward and "just the facts". Nothing laid out in this book will surprise anyone who is familiar with Communist bloc social control systems. There is no analysis or extrapolation worth mentioning from the socio-economic presentation. Key aspects even within that range e.g. Party-Army-Population relationships are not examined in any analytical note.

This is a quite specific piece set in a quite specific time frame. Thus a read only for real North Korean buffs. As one reviewer has alluded to, the only real purpose of the description of conditions and life in North Korea of the 1970s, is to give us an indication as to the seeds of the (self-made) trouble and decline that has subsequently unfolded. The same mixture of issues that have brought down, principally from within, other Communist regimes, in this case merely with a particular North Korean spin to it.

Thus as a book - a very particular snapshot. In its own right, as well as in terms of content -...

These authors really did excellent research and they take the attentive reader behind the closed borders of North Korea. It is one of the last countries on earth that doesn't have diplomatic relations with the U.S. In this book the reader will experience the harsh reality of a poverty-striken country that happens to be the largest weapons exporter in the region. Another book that I highly recommend which is also based on a recent declassified CIA report and which discusses North Korea's secret but aggressive nuclear weapons program is the thriller THE CONSULTANT by Alec Donzi.