North Korea has remained a thorn in the side of the United States ever since its creation in the aftermath of the Korean conflict of 1950 - 1953. Crafting a foreign policy that effectively deals with North Korea, while still ensuring stability and security on the Korean Peninsula - and in Northeast Asia as a whole - has proved very challenging for successive American administrations. In the wake of ruler Kim Jong-il's death in December 2011, analysts and policymakers continue to speculate about the effect his last years as leader will have on the future of North Korea. Bruce Bechtol, Jr. conte.

North Korea's opaqueness combined with its military capabilities make the country and its leader dangerous wild cards in the international community. Brookings Senior Fellow Jung H. Pak, who led the U.S. intelligence community's analysis on Korean issues, tells the story of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's upbringing, provides insight on his decision-making, and makes recommendations on how to thwart Kim's ambitions. In her deep analysis of the personality of the North Korean leader, Pak makes clearer the reasoning behind the way he governs and conducts his foreign affairs.

No country is as misunderstood as North Korea, and no modern tyrant has remained more mysterious than the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Now, celebrity ghostwriter Michael Malice pulls back the curtain to expose the life story of the "Incarnation of Love and Morality." Taken directly from books spirited out of Pyongyang, DEAR READER is a carefully reconstructed first-person account of the man behind the mythology. From his miraculous rainbow-filled birth during the fiery conflict of World War II, Kim Jong Il watched as his beloved Korea finally earned its freedom from the cursed Japanese. Mere years later, the wicked US imperialists took their chance at conquering the liberated nation—with devastating results. But that's only the beginning of the Dear Leader's story. In DEAR READER, Kim Jong Il explains: *How he can shrink time *Why he despises the Mona Lisa *How he recreated the arts in Korea *Why the Juche idea is the greatest concept ever discovered by man *How he handled the crippling famine *Why Kim Jong Un was chosen as successor over his elder brothers With nothing left uncovered, drawing straight from dozens of books, hundreds of articles and thousands of years of Korean history, DEAR READER is both the definitive account of Kim Jong Il's life and the complete stranger-than-fiction history of the world's most unique country.

Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader offers in-depth portraits of North Korea's two ruthless and bizarrely Orwellian leaders, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. Lifting North Korea's curtain of self-imposed isolation, this book will take readers inside a society, that to a Westerner, will appear to be from another planet. Subsisting on a diet short on food grains and long on lies, North Koreans have been indoctrinated from birth to follow unquestioningly a father-son team of megalomaniacs. To North Koreans, the Kims are more than just leaders. Kim Il-Sung is the country's leading novelist, philosopher, historian, educator, designer, literary critic, architect, general, farmer, and ping-pong trainer. Radios are made so they can only be tuned to the official state frequency. "Newspapers" are filled with endless columns of Kim speeches and propaganda. And instead of Christmas, North Koreans celebrate Kim's birthday--and he presents each child a present, just like Santa. The regime that the Kim Dynasty has built remains technically at war with the United States nearly a half century after the armistice that halted actual fighting in the Korean War. This fascinating and complete history takes full advantage of a great deal of source material that has only recently become available (some from archives in Moscow and Beijing), and brings the reader up to the tensions of the current day. For as this book will explain, North Korea appears more and more to be the greatest threat among the Axis of Evil countries--with some defector testimony warning that Kim Jong-Il has enough chemical weapons to wipe out the entire population of South Korea.

In Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il, authors John H. Cha and K. J. Sohn present a compelling portrait of two men caught up in a struggle for the survival of North Korean society. Th e product of an eight-year study of individuals who observed and worked under Kim Jong-il, the dictator of North Korea for over thirty years, this biography provides insight into the Kims family corruption of power. The story is told through the eyes of Hwang Jang-yop, a renowned philosopher and writer, former International Secretariat of North Korea, and mentor to Kim Jong-il. It narrates Hwangs journey in his battle against Kims greed for power. It reveals a three-dimensional portrait of Kim Jong-il rarely chronicled, from Kims early days and rise to power to his economic crisis and his continual power struggle. As well as recording the life of Kim, Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il recounts Hwangs defection from North Korea so he could tell the world about the corrupt dictatorship and its policies that he felt were responsible for the massive famine in North Korea. Through testimonies from Hwang and other defectors from North Korea, this biography reveals what was going on inside the man, Kim Jong-il, and the society he ruled.

Kim Jong Il came to power after the death of his father Kim Il Sung in 1994. Contrary to expectations, he has succeeded in maintaining enough political stability to remain in power. Kim Jong Il's Leadership of North Korea is an examination of how political power has been developed, transmitted from father to son, and now operates in North Korea Using a variety of original North Korean sources as well as South Korean materials Jae-Cheon Lim pieces together the ostensibly contradictory and inconsistent facts into a conceptual coherent framework. This book considers Kim and his leadership through an analytical framework. composed of four main elements: i) Kim as a leader of a totalitarian society; ii) as a politician; iii) as a Korean; and iv) as an individual person. This illuminating account of what constitutes power and how it is used makes an important contribution to the understanding of an opaque and difficult regime. It will be of interest for upper level undergraduate, postgraduates and academics interested in North Korean politics, and also those in Political theory.