There Are No Gods in North Korea

There Are No Gods in North Korea
Author: Anjaly Thomas
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Africa, East
ISBN: 9789385285332

- Lawyer turned travel writer Anjaly Thomas takes a solo journey through the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the guise of a kindergarten - This book examines the people and culture of North Korea To be able to learn real life lessons is far greater than reading the stories one finds between the pages of a school book - Anjaly Thomas The uniqueness of the book lies in the simplicity of narration and the author's real life experiences as she goes about her solo journeys around the world. These journeys do not dwell on destinations, but life moments which define the purpose of travel and create the richness of experience, leading her to a completeness not experienced by any other form of entertainment. Be it freezing in the cold in Turkey, capitalizing on the kindness of strangers in Mongolia, redefining the limits of individual freedom in the iron-regime of Democratic People's Republic of Korea or whether it is about learning to give, take or being humble or, most importantly, whether it is about being able to shed prejudices and being able to adapt and accept change the author's journeys to random countries around the world will take the reader to a new level of understanding travel. It will instill a sense of responsibility and the importance of being a part of the world we live in.

My Holiday in North Korea

My Holiday in North Korea
Author: Wendy E. Simmons
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0795347227

“You remember Eat, Pray, Love and Under the Tuscan Sun? Yeah, this really isn’t like those. It’s better” (San Francisco Chronicle). Most people want out of North Korea. Wendy Simmons wanted in. In My Holiday in North Korea: The Funniest/Worst Place on Earth, Wendy shares a glimpse of North Korea as it’s never been seen before. Even though it’s the scariest place on Earth, somehow Wendy forgot to check her sense of humor at the border. But Wendy’s initial amusement and bewilderment soon turned to frustration and growing paranoia. Before long, she learned the essential conundrum of “tourism” in North Korea: Travel is truly a love affair. But, just like love, it’s a two-way street. And North Korea deprives you of all this. They want you to fall in love with the singular vision of the country they’re willing to show you and nothing more. Through poignant, laugh-out-loud essays and ninety-two never-before-published color photographs of North Korea, Wendy chronicles one of the strangest vacations ever. Along the way, she bares all while undergoing an inner journey as convoluted as the country itself. “Much of the humor and poignancy comes from the absurdity of a fun-loving free spirit taking a vacation that’s more rigidly scripted and controlled than a presidential motorcade . . . Simmons’ photos—including an eerie image of a classroom full of schoolgirls playing accordions—further illustrate the bizarre nature of a country that, whether for good or bad, has been carefully controlled for generations.” —San Francisco Chronicle “An irresistible read . . . A rare and fascinating look at the tourist’s North Korea in a work that is humorous, appalling, and very sad. A highly recommended and revealing glimpse into a secretive land.” —Library Journal

The Cleanest Race

The Cleanest Race
Author: B.R. Myers
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1935554972

Understanding North Korea through its propaganda What do the North Koreans really believe? How do they see themselves and the world around them? Here B.R. Myers, a North Korea analyst and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, presents the first full-length study of the North Korean worldview. Drawing on extensive research into the regime’s domestic propaganda, including films, romance novels and other artifacts of the personality cult, Myers analyzes each of the country’s official myths in turn—from the notion of Koreans’ unique moral purity, to the myth of an America quaking in terror of “the Iron General.” In a concise but groundbreaking historical section, Myers also traces the origins of this official culture back to the Japanese fascist thought in which North Korea’s first ideologues were schooled. What emerges is a regime completely unlike the West’s perception of it. This is neither a bastion of Stalinism nor a Confucian patriarchy, but a paranoid nationalist, “military-first” state on the far right of the ideological spectrum. Since popular support for the North Korean regime now derives almost exclusively from pride in North Korean military might, Pyongyang can neither be cajoled nor bullied into giving up its nuclear program. The implications for US foreign policy—which has hitherto treated North Korea as the last outpost of the Cold War—are as obvious as they are troubling. With North Korea now calling for a “blood reckoning” with the “Yankee jackals,” Myers’s unprecedented analysis could not be more timely.

Juche

Juche
Author: Thomas Julian Belke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 438
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN:

"Embark on an illustrated journey into one of the world's most isolated nations - North Korea. Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea's State Religion takes you on a journey into North Korea to view what is possibly the most rigidly controlling religious system on the planet - Juche. Through the use of unchallengeable totalitarian power, North Korea's ruling elite enforces Juche ideology in every aspect of the culture. No competing ideologies are permitted. Under the Juche belief system, man is proclaimed God in a nation whose government has officially decided against Christianity for all of its citizens. The majority of North Koreans today have never heard the name of Jesus. This book explores the various aspects of Juche, including its origins, central teachings, spiritual dimension, and holy sites. It also considers the Juche worldview, propagation of the Juche culture, and Juche as a religion in transition. The journey into North Korea's state religion concludes by considering a biblical view of the future of Juche."--Amazon.com.

Rogue Regime

Rogue Regime
Author: Jasper Becker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2005-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 019517044X

An eye-opening look at North Korea, a brutal Stalinist country that has become one of the most volatile hot spots in the world.

Why Evolution is True

Why Evolution is True
Author: Jerry A. Coyne
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2010-01-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 019164384X

For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to new fossil discoveries, to the deciphering of the evidence stored in our genome. Why Evolution is True weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, palaeontology, geology, molecular biology, anatomy, and development to demonstrate the 'indelible stamp' of the processes first proposed by Darwin. It is a crisp, lucid, and accessible statement that will leave no one with an open mind in any doubt about the truth of evolution.

North Korea through the Looking Glass

North Korea through the Looking Glass
Author: Kongdan Oh
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2004-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0815798202

Fifty-five years after its founding at the dawn of the cold war, North Korea remains a land of illusions. Isolated and anachronistic, the country and its culture seem to be dominated exclusively by the official ideology of Juche, which emphasizes national self-reliance, independence, and worship of the supreme leader, General Kim Jong Il. Yet this socialist utopian ideal is pursued with the calculations of international power politics. Kim has transformed North Korea into a militarized state, whose nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and continued threat to South Korea have raised alarm worldwide. This paradoxical combination of cultural isolation and military-first policy has left the North Korean people woefully deprived of the opportunity to advance socially and politically. The socialist economy, guided by political principles and bereft of international support, has collapsed. Thousands, perhaps millions, have died of starvation. Foreign trade has declined and the country's gross domestic product has recorded negative growth every year for a decade. Yet rather than initiate the sort of market reforms that were implemented by other communist governments, North Korean leaders have reverted to the economic policies of the 1950s: mass mobilization, concentration on heavy industry, and increased ideological indoctrination. Although members of the political elite in Pyongyang are acutely aware of their nation's domestic and foreign problems, they are plagued by fear and policy paralysis. North Korea Through the Looking Glass sheds new light on this remote and peculiar country. Drawing on more than ten years of research—including interviews with two dozen North Koreans who made the painful decision to defect from their homeland—Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig explore what the leadership and the masses believe about their current predicament. Through dual themes of persistence and illusion, they explore North Korea's stubborn adherence to policies that have

Without You, There Is No Us

Without You, There Is No Us
Author: Suki Kim
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307720667

A haunting account of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields—except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has gone undercover as a missionary and a teacher. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them English, all under the watchful eye of the regime. Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues—evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. As the weeks pass, she is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. At the same time, they offer Suki tantalizing glimpses of their private selves—their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. She in turn begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own—at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. But when Kim Jong-il dies, and the boys she has come to love appear devastated, she wonders whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged. Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves."

Every Falling Star

Every Falling Star
Author: Sungju Lee
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 161312340X

Written for a young audience, this intense memoir explores the harsh realities of life on the streets in contemporary North Korea. Every Falling Star is the memoir of Sungju Lee, who at the age of twelve was forced to live on the streets of North Korea and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, “his brothers,” to daily be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist.

Only Beautiful, Please

Only Beautiful, Please
Author: John Vivian Everard
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781931368254

"Coverage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea all too often focuses solely on nuclear proliferation, military parades and the personality cults around its leaders. As British Ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006 ... to 2008 ... While stationed in Pyongyang, Everard's travels around the DPRK provided him with numerous opportunities to meet and converse with North Koreans. [This] goes beyond the official North Korea to unveil the human dimension of life in that hermetic nation. Everard recounts his impressions of the country and its people, his interactions with them, and his observations on their way of life. He provides a picture as well of the life of foreigners in this closed society, considers how the DPRK evolved to its current state, and discusses the failure of current approaches to tackle the challenges that it throws up"--Publisher's description.