Want to know what books Andrei Lankov recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Andrei Lankov's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
In the mid-1990s, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. The socialist food distribution system collapsed primarily because of a misguided push for self-reliance, but was compounded by the regime's failure to formulate a quick response-including the blocking of desperately needed humanitarian relief.
As households, enterprises, local party organs, and military units tried to cope with the economic collapse, a grassroots process of marketization took root. However, rather than embracing these changes, the North Korean regime... more In the mid-1990s, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. The socialist food distribution system collapsed primarily because of a misguided push for self-reliance, but was compounded by the regime's failure to formulate a quick response-including the blocking of desperately needed humanitarian relief.
As households, enterprises, local party organs, and military units tried to cope with the economic collapse, a grassroots process of marketization took root. However, rather than embracing these changes, the North Korean regime opted for tentative economic reforms with ambiguous benefits and a self-destructive foreign policy. As a result, a chronic food shortage continues to plague North Korea today.
In their carefully researched book, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland present the most comprehensive and penetrating account of the famine to date, examining not only the origins and aftermath of the crisis but also the regime's response to outside aid and the effect of its current policies on the country's economic future. Their study begins by considering the root causes of the famine, weighing the effects of the decline in the availability of food against its poor distribution. Then it takes a close look at the aid effort, addressing the difficulty of monitoring assistance within the country, and concludes with an analysis of current economic reforms and strategies of engagement.
North Korea's famine exemplified the depredations that can arise from tyrannical rule and the dilemmas such regimes pose for the humanitarian community, as well as the obstacles inherent in achieving economic and political reform. To reveal the state's culpability in this tragic event is a vital project of historical recovery, one that is especially critical in light of our current engagement with the "North Korean question." less See more recommendations for this book...
2
An account of the brutish conditions in North Korea. The Aquariums of Pyongyang is a heartbreaking story of survival. It is to be understood that the story is not unique in that there are thousands of families in North Korea being persecuted and starved even today. That there are still operating concentration camps as well as the implementation of the 3-generation rule, wherein everyone in the family is punished up to 3-generations for even the most minuscule crimes. Above all The Aquariums of Pyongyang is the story of Kang Chol-Hwan's triumph over the North Korean government's... more An account of the brutish conditions in North Korea. The Aquariums of Pyongyang is a heartbreaking story of survival. It is to be understood that the story is not unique in that there are thousands of families in North Korea being persecuted and starved even today. That there are still operating concentration camps as well as the implementation of the 3-generation rule, wherein everyone in the family is punished up to 3-generations for even the most minuscule crimes. Above all The Aquariums of Pyongyang is the story of Kang Chol-Hwan's triumph over the North Korean government's dehumanizing oppression.
-Dominic Chu less See more recommendations for this book...
3
This text traces the political history of North Korea from World War II to the death of Kim Il Sung. It looks at the development of the Communist Party underground from the early 1920s, the establishment of a ruling oligarchy after the liberation of Korea by the Soviet Union in 1945, and the growth of Kimist personal autocracy from 1958. The role of Soviet patronage in each period is analyzed closely, as is the nature of Korean communism. Buzo explores the influence of traditional Korean political culture and the Korean nationalist movement, and concludes with an assessment of North Korea's... more This text traces the political history of North Korea from World War II to the death of Kim Il Sung. It looks at the development of the Communist Party underground from the early 1920s, the establishment of a ruling oligarchy after the liberation of Korea by the Soviet Union in 1945, and the growth of Kimist personal autocracy from 1958. The role of Soviet patronage in each period is analyzed closely, as is the nature of Korean communism. Buzo explores the influence of traditional Korean political culture and the Korean nationalist movement, and concludes with an assessment of North Korea's difficult position in the 1990s. less See more recommendations for this book...
4
Nicholas Eberstadt | 3.25
With the establishment in 1948 of a Soviet-sponsored Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the northern half of the Korean peninsula and a U.S.-supported Republic of Korea (ROK) in the South, a thousand years of political and administrative unity came to an official end for the Korean nation. At the same time, the political quest for Korean reunification may be said to have commenced. For the DPRK government, the reunification of Korea -- on the DPRK's own terms -- has been an overriding policy objective since its very inception.Korean reunification on the DPRK's terms was not only... more With the establishment in 1948 of a Soviet-sponsored Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the northern half of the Korean peninsula and a U.S.-supported Republic of Korea (ROK) in the South, a thousand years of political and administrative unity came to an official end for the Korean nation. At the same time, the political quest for Korean reunification may be said to have commenced. For the DPRK government, the reunification of Korea -- on the DPRK's own terms -- has been an overriding policy objective since its very inception.Korean reunification on the DPRK's terms was not only feasible but promising at one time. As Nicholas Eberstadt shows in The End of North Korea, the cherished goal of Korean unification is drawing closer -- but it is not a reunification on DPRK terms.
Eberstadt has an extraordinary ability to find meaning observable signals of impending systemic dysfunction, although data are sorely lacking from a regime resolutely dosed to the outside world. He astutely pieces together a picture of North Korea trapped in a self-perpetuating spiral of economic degeneration. The regimes commitment to hypermilitarization (it has been near total wax mobilization since at least the early 1970s) and its insistence on an especially idiosyncratic variant of central economic planning have taken their toll. The most vivid manifestation of systemic woes was the widespread food shortages in North Korea of 1995 and 1996 -- and one incontestable indication of economic collapse is a hunger crisis precipitated by a breakdown in the national food system. Eberstadt observes that the therapies that might restore the regime to health also threaten to destroy its power.
As theeconomic base beneath the North Korean state falters and the prospect of state failure draws closer, the lethal power in the hands of the regime and the leadership's incentives to exploit it to secure foreign support increase. According to Eberstadt, North Korea's endgame exposes all of Northeast Asia, and possibly even countries outside the region, to immediate and mounting peril The author looks at what steps can be taken -- and by whom -- to maximize the likelihood of a benign outcome. less See more recommendations for this book...
5
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... more 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. less See more recommendations for this book...
Don't have time to read Andrei Lankov's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
