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John Sweeney

North Korea Undercover: Inside the World's Most Secret State Hardcover – International Edition, September 15, 2014

by John Sweeney (Author)

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A unique and timely account of life in North Korea.
     North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. The regime controls the flow of information to its citizens, pouring relentless propaganda through omnipresent loud speakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready to punish disloyalty and the slightest sign of discontent.
     You must bow to Kim Il Sung, the Eternal Leader and to his son, Generalissimo Kim Jong Il. Worship the dead and then hail the living, the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. North Koreans are told their home is the greatest nation on earth. Big Brother is always watching.
     Posing as a university professor, award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney travelled undercover to gain unprecedented access to the world's most secret state. Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, North Korea Undercover pulls back the curtain, providing a rare insight into life there today, examining the country's troubled history and addressing important questions about its uncertain future. Sweeney's highly engaging, authoritative account illuminates the dark side of the Hermit Kingdom and challenges the West's perception of this paranoid nationalist state.

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bantam Press
Publication date

September 15, 2014
Dimensions

6.24 x 1.27 x 9.4 inches
ISBN-10

0593072979
ISBN-13

978-0593072974
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

JOHN SWEENEY is a reporter for BBC Panorama who became a YouTube sensation when he lost his temper with a senior member of the Church of Scientology. Before joining the BBC in 2001, Sweeney worked for twelve years at The Observer, where he covered wars and revolutions and unrest in more than sixty countries from Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya to Zimbabwe. He has helped free seven innocent people falsely convicted for killing their babies and given evidence against six suspected war criminals in The Hague. Over the course of his career John has won one Emmy, two Royal Television Society prizes, one Sony Gold award, the What The Papers Say Journalist of The Year Prize, an Amnesty International prize and the Paul Foot Award. He is the author of eight books, including most recently The Church of Fear -- Inside The Weird World of Scientology. His hobby is falling off his bike on the way back from the pub.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam Press (September 15, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593072979
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593072974
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.39 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.24 x 1.27 x 9.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #17,240,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #80,712 in Political Ideologies & Doctrines (Books)

Customer Reviews:
78 ratings

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2 star		6%
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Amazon Customer

Captivating and Highly Informative!!

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2016

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John Sweeney was a good friend during our LSE days (regrettably quite a few years ago) so I would probably have rated the book highly regardless, but I genuinely loved it. It is a unique blend of careful, well-documented analysis and gripping narrative. North Korea undoubtedly wins the prize for most totalitarian regime, and for those fascinated -- as I am -- by it, this is a totally must read. A great complement to the book is the documentary film that Sweeney and colleagues shot during their trip. I am also going to turn to John's other books, notably his account of the life and times of Ceausescu, communist Romania's famed dictator.

One person found this helpful

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J. Nieling

OK ... could be better

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2017

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I am glad I read the book. It is very eye opening. However, it is not very well written and the kindle version has many many words that were pushed together with no blanks between the words, making it a bit more challenging to read. I haven't read Nothing to Envy but I understand that it is a better book

One person found this helpful

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Christina F.

Great book, terrible typos

Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2017

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I am enjoying the author's perspective on North Korea and its people. However, the Kindle edition that I purchased is absolutely riddled with typos. There are letters missing from words, and more often than not, words that run together without spaces. This makes reading somewhat annoying, though the content itself is quite interesting. This edition of the book really does need some editing and revision.

One person found this helpful

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Brian

...

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2016

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The book isn't bad, but, as others have eluded to, there isn't very much of anything at all in this book not found in others on North Korea. In fact, a decent portion of this book seems like a collection of accounts from the best North Korea books available. Furthermore, the ''undercover'' in the title is slightly misleading and the author had an experience not terribly different than someone simply entering on a tourist guided tour. As I said, not a bad book at all, I'm still happy I read it, just don't really expect much new.

3 people found this helpful

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Shive 1969

Excellent portrayel of the greatest disfunctional nation in the world

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2016

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An excellent coverage of a nation I would never ever visit. Being the son of a Korean War combat vet who fought to keep South Korea free from this form of rule I could never go to a country where they have tourists bow to statues of the ego maniacs who have brought death and misery to their own people, kidnapped citizens of various other nations, and threatened the peace of nearby nations and the U.S.

2 people found this helpful

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Andrew Price

... this book looking for information on what life is like in North Korea and some history on it

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2016

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I bought this book looking for information on what life is like in North Korea and some history on it. I got a little of that and a lot of dry humor and info on Mr. Sweeneys other works. I wasn't completely disappointed, and did learn a lot of information i didn't know, but I probably wouldn't of bought it it knowing it was going to be written in the manner that it has.

One person found this helpful

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Richard C

Fascinating insight

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2014

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If only half of what John Sweeney writes about were true, this would still be one weird place. A population totally brainwashed by fear and intimidation.

3 people found this helpful

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Juhani Polvinen

Great read, recommend.

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2014

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Great book written in really readable style.
Sometimes maybe a little too detail-oriented and wanders from the point, especially for non-British readers (e.g. the IRA section).
Great to watch also the BBC Panorama documentary from the same trip.

3 people found this helpful

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Edmund White

No Real Insight

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2015

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I have read quite a few books on North Korea now. The problem with this one was that you do not learn anything - the author, like us, cannot quite believe what he sees and hears. He struggles to grasp that such a country exists, and so what we end up with is essentially one man insulting (albeit perfectly justified) the Kims and the regime. He only really sees what the guides want him to see, so all his 'real' information on NK is secondhand. For a true glimpse into NK, read The Aquariums of Pyongyang, Dear Leader, or - most shockingly - Escape from Camp 14

15 people found this helpful

Kat Man Do

I remember watching John Sweeney's TV documentary programme and the book is a pretty fair re-run of that along with explanations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 27, 2016

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I've read a lot of DPRK defectors stories, such as: Escape from Camp 14: One man's remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West , https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1843544997/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=NYRYZKWBVKF0FYF9H4PS, and also a number of works about the DPRK: North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors , https://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-North-Korea-Politics-Stalinist/dp/0199390037/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4FDXG7K60ZV0J7D0TZ7S and https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099578654/ref=pd_sim_14_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FKASFBNKF82QJDZHYXQF to name three. As a psychiatric nurse I am fascinated by the cult of personality that develops around individuals that allows them to bend nations to their will. I remember watching John Sweeney's TV documentary programme and the book is a pretty fair re-run of that along with explanations around the furore that ensued when it emerged he'd gone in embedded with a group of students who were allegedly unaware of his prime motive. Sweeny's narrative does come across as angry at times, but I get the impression that this anger is directed at a nation that is too scared to admit the obvious: i.e. the regime is brutal although after seventy years of brainwashing and generations of people being sent to 'reeducation camps' or simply 'disappeared' along with their families for perceived slights against the 'dear leader' I don't see how that's going to change overnight. I also think that the anger is also directed at the rest of the world for standing by for seventy years and allowing it to get to this point. That the state couldn't exist without the collusion of large players like China and Russia who could have effected regime change a long time ago casts a long shadow in that part of Asia. That the book contains insights into the North Korean way of life is correct, however, not from what Sweeney see's and hears but more from what is left unseen and unsaid and the desperate, at times threatening, attitude of their minders, which is backed up by storeis of those that have escaped that system often in the full knowledge that their families will suffer horribly as a result. The satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night sums up the state in a nutshell - Darkness surrounded by light.

One person found this helpful

Tony Reid

Most sinister country in the world.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2017

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I would like to congratulate John Sweeney on this really terrifying account of life in North Korea. The poor people are living in hell and I guess that is all they understand. They, unfortunately don't understand what freedom is. I hope that I am alive the day that the country is United, and that all people from the north are given their freedom. Please pray for them, they deserve it.

3 people found this helpful

Seb M

The most enjoyable read about North Korea and I've read most of them.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2014

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This book is a brilliant mix of travelogue and documentary.

One chapter may be an account of the bizarre experience of travelling there, the next a detailed history of an issue like the gulag. Very easy to read. Perhaps not for academics but well worth reading for those considering travelling to the DPRK, and well worth sharing among friends of those who have been so that people actually believe the surreal experience.

Sweeney is different to other authors on the DPRK in three ways:

a) He's emotional but is not a victim and avoids going over the top in his writing - and this is a subject that warrants emotion but strong emotions tend to actually reduce shock levels in the reader. The crimes of the regime means that first hand accounts from North Koreans tend to read like James Herbert books and pass through the minds value-sieve as if fiction. Sweeney's rational, factual approach combined with openness about his own values makes it easier for the facts to sink in and the reader to be left with the right perception of the DPRK.

b) He presents the facts in a coherent way but doesn't over-intellectualise a topic to the point that the crimes of the state become bland and unemotive.

c) He makes absolutely no apology for the state. Most people other than victims (or their ghost-writers) who write about the DPRK have an ongoing involvement with the state of some kind and tend to write somewhat apologetically. Sometimes fear, sometimes expedience, sometimes necessity, sometimes academic neutrality and sometimes the capacity of our minds to blind ourselves to inconvenient truths. Sweeney clearly doesn't plan to go back so gives you his real perceptions.

If I was thinking about visiting the DPRK, this would be the one book I'd buy.

2 people found this helpful

Kat

Interesting book on North Korea!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2019

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Interesting book on North Korea, good insight into the lives of people over there & what really happens beyond the border! Only thing is it was a bit too detailed in places & could have been cut down a bit!

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North Korea Undercover: Inside the World's Most Secret State Hardcover – International Edition, September 15, 2014

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