Ralph Hassig, Kongdan Oh

The Hidden People of North Korea (eBook, ePUB)

Everyday Life in the Hermit Kingdom

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

This unique book, now fully updated, provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of life in North Korea today. Drawing on decades of experience, noted experts Ralph Hassig and Kongdan Oh explore a world few outsiders can imagine. In vivid detail, the authors describe how the secretive and authoritarian government of Kim Jong-un shapes every aspect of its citizens' lives, how the command socialist economy has utterly failed, and how ordinary individuals struggle to survive through small-scale capitalism. Weighing the very limited individual rights allowed, the authors illustrate how the political class system and the legal system serve solely as tools of the regime. The key to understanding how the North Korean people live, the authors argue, is to realize that their only allowed role is to support Kim Jong-un, whose grandfather founded the country in the late 1940s. Still a cypher, Kim Jong-un, as did his father before him, controls his people by keeping them isolated and banning most foreigners. North Koreans remain hungry and oppressed, yet the outside world is slowly filtering in, and the book concludes by urging the United States to flood North Korea with information so that its people can make decisions based on truth rather than their dictator's ubiquitous propaganda.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 252
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. April 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781442237193
• Artikelnr.: 42712778

Autorenporträt

Ralph Hassig taught for five years in Asia as an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Maryland University College.. He and his wife, Kongdan Oh, are the authors of North Korea through the Looking Glass and The Hidden People of North Korea.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Chapter 1Introduction: Land of Illusions
Chapter 2The Country of the Three Kims
Chapter 3The Struggling National Economy
Chapter 4The Emerging People's Economy
Chapter 5Propaganda, News, and South Korean Soap Operas
Chapter 6Public Declarations and Private Thoughts
Chapter 7The Human Rights Deficit
Chapter 8Silent Defectors
Chapter 9 Faint Light at the End of the Tunnel
Notes
Index
About the Authors