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210 Book ReviewS Michael J. Seth, North Korea: A History (London: Macmillan International Higher Education, 2018). 312 pp. $33.99 (paper). Scholars of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (dprk), or even those well-read non-scholars who have lived on the Korean Peninsula for many years, probably all have received requests for reading recommendations. Even well- read, well-educated non-Koreans are starting to realize, thanks to the ever- growing difficulties North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have present- ed, as well as the growing South Korean economic and cultural clout North Korea jeopardizes, that their knowledge of the area is lacking. The scholar or well-informed layperson’s list until now necessarily has included multiple books that historians, journalists, or other popularizers have written, because one book surely cannot tell the complete story of the Hermit Kingdom. And those of us who have read extensively have a handful of books handy for such an occasion. But would not just one book be better? Michael J. Seth’s North Korea: A History attempts to be that one book those in the know can recommend not only to their friends, but also use for introduc- tory courses to bring students up to speed on the thorniest of East Asian secu- rity dilemmas. Does it succeed? Essentially yes, though there is some reason to hope it will not represent the last attempt. In addition to its introduction, the book is divided into seven chapters, covering distinct eras in the state’s evolu- tion. The first deals with the “historical roots of the North Korean state,” includ- ing both the Joseon Dynasty and its fall, plus the attendant Japanese takeover and assorted forms of resistance—among both nationalists and leftist radi- cals on the peninsula, as well as Communist partisans who battled Japan in Manchuria. The second chapter deals with the foundation of the state following the Japanese Empire’s defeat, with land reform, Kim Il Sung’s ascent to leadership, as well as the reorganization of society, with much of the aristocratic yangban fleeing south as the government seized their assets and turned them over to peasants. It also addresses the Korean War, its failure to unite the peninsula and how the regime responded, reshaping North Korean politics through the downfall of former South Korean leftists who had moved to North Korea. The third chapter concerns the state’s push for industrialization in the postwar pe- riod, with the Chollima movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s typifying its efforts. It also details Kim’s successful purging of rivals—those aligned with Soviet Russia and Maoist China – within the government. The fourth follows the conclusion of that process, as Kim eliminated the last of his domestic rivals and oversaw the creation of a monolithic state, revolving around him as the © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/18765610-02702008 <UN> Book ReviewS 211 supreme leader. In the fifth, the book covers the 1980s and early 1990s, ending just before the great famine. Then, in the last two, it arrives at present day events that should be more familiar, even to non-specialists, recounting the regime’s survival of the famine and its nuclear standoff with the outside world, particularly the United States. The book synthesizes a variety of sources, including not only scholarship, but also policy reports, news coverage, and other popular materials. However, closer to the present day, the author also dives into primary sources, namely North Korea’s own media. While one would expect this for this sort of book, future efforts hopefully will make an effort to include more diversity, particu- larly of non-English-speaking literature. The book really picks up steam in chapter three, when North Korea truly begins to chart an independent course for itself. It does that, of course, through some extremely ruthless means, namely the purging of party elites that Kim saw as loyal to Beijing or Moscow and the organizing of all members of society under the Songbun system, measuring and rewarding citizens according to their perceived loyalty to the regime, as well as the insistence that cultural works begin to center around Korean subjects, rather than Soviet ones. These measures, Seth notes, may have been good for Kim family loyalty but were not the best steps for ensuring quality leadership. “Perhaps in no other modern society was power so effectively monopolized by people with so little educa- tion and so little exposure to the larger world,” he notes (p. 79). The following chapter, covering the 1960s and 1970s, further documents this isolation, and Kim purged the last quasi-independent group—the Kapsan faction—and then embarked on a “cultural revolution” of his own, though more controlled and purposeful than the one Mao Zedong unleashed to the north of the Korean Peninsula. “Officials then checked all printed material and anything that was not approved,” Seth reports, “was confiscated and burned, including many literary classics and almost anything beyond a narrow range of official dprk published materials” (p. 116). The regime venerated the Kim family line for its revolutionary lineage, and soon thereafter Kim Jong Il, son of founding leader, emerged as his chosen successor. Chapters like these are especially useful because they address a pair of misperceptions common outside of North Korea-watching circles: 1) that one should primarily see North Korea as a Communist state and 2) North Korea is irrational; speak to layperson on the subject and it becomes painfully clear how deeply held these misperceptions are. That the state is ultimately cen- tered around the Kim leadership, those leaders’ purported devotion to the pub- lic, and the distrust of outsiders does not filter down to the average American journal of american-east asian relations 27 (2020) 199-212 <UN>.

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