North Korea Books

Inside North Korea

Mark Edward Harris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A propaganda paradise 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I recently reviewed Philippe Chancel's excellent photographic book North Korea and Mark Harris in his book has filled in more of the jigsaw. The Chancel book essentially covered the capitol Pyongyang and Harris contributes twenty general shots, too. Additional capitol coverage includes the amazing Arirang Mass Games, the Children's Palace, the Korean film studio and five shots of the USS Pueblo.

The strength of this book is the coverage outside of the capitol. No doubt under strict supervision Harris visited Kaesong, Geumgangsen, Sinuiju, Paektusan and the Tumen River along the northeast border region. The photos show the countryside and rather bleak looking cities and towns. Everywhere bikes seem the principal means of transport and everywhere there are the slogans of good cheer to inspire the masses. On page 135 there is photo of a hillside above the town of Sanbong with huge letters spelling out: 'Bravo Mr Kim who is the Greatest Sunshine of the 21st Century!' No doubt it keeps hillside typographers busy.

The last section covers the countryside along the Demilitarised Zone with its two and a half mile wide strip of land 151 miles long. The photos here are a mixture of military presence and agricultural folk existing (on either side) in this volatile flashpoint. One photo shows the world's tallest flagpole, 525 feet high, towering above the village of Kichong-dong (wouldn't such a structure make a super espionage something or other?).

I liked the book with its mixture of travel and politics (SS Pueblo, DMZ and Panmunjeom) presented in slightly raw, gutsy photos whereas Chancel's style is photographically softer and his book is the more elegant of the two. Both books are certainly worth a look if you want see a little bit of a forbidden country and you'll most likely see more of it than many of the people who live there.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Editorial Review:

All but closed to outside visitors and influence, its public posture guarded and combative, we see almost nothing from inside North Korea. Award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has had rare access to this reclusive country, traveling within its borders as well as documenting life along its northern border with China and the highly militarized DMZ dividing North and South Korea. His images are amazing: the monumental architecture and empty streets of the capital; tightly controlled zones of economic and tourist trade with South Korea; mass games featuring 100,000 choreographed participants. Short essays, extended captions, and a foreword by North Korea expert Bruce Cumings further illuminate a country increasingly at the center of international politics.

Axis of Evil World Tour: An American’s Travels in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea

Scott Fisher

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Axis of Evil World Tour goes beyond the superficial coverage found in much of the media to bring a boots-on-the-ground look at three of the most enigmatic, difficult-to-enter countries on the planet—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

North Korea: Visit the tense yet quiet DMZ that divides North from South, one of the eeriest places on earth. Spend time touring Pyongyang, the showcase capital that houses the regime and its elites. Travel halfway across the country to the beautiful “Heavenly Fragrance” mountain for a visit to the surreal, cult-like “museums” housing gifts to the country’s leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.

Iraq: What’s it like to live on a U.S. military base during the war in Iraq? Spend two months as part of the Iraqi Survey Group, the international team that was tasked with finding Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

Iran: What do Iranians think of the U.S. and Americans? You might be surprised. Travel around the country and take an inside look at Khomeini’s tomb, hear about Iran’s own fight against Al Qaeda, and take a look inside the secret world of the mullahs that really run Iran.

Head to AxisofEvilTour.com for photos, book excerpts, and video clips.

North Korea, 2nd (Bradt Travel Guide)

Robert Willoughby

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Editorial Review:

A new edition of the first travel guide to cover the practical aspects of travelling to and around North Korea, a country which both intrigues and concerns the international community. Everything a genuine traveler needs is here, including red tape and security issues, access from South Korea and Beijing, routes outwards from Pyongyang, and opportunities for excursions into unspoilt countryside. Altogether a fascinating insight into the culture and history of a country that currently exists in virtual isolation from the rest of the world.

To Dream of Pigs: Travels in South and North Korea (Far Eastern Travel Series) (Far Eastern Travel Series)

Clive Leatherdale

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

'The scariest place on earth.' So said President Bill Clinton on his visit to the no-man's land between South and North Korea in 1993. With the end of the Cold War in Europe, the minefields and barbed wire that divide the two Koreas constitute the jagged edge of world peace. If the world is to endure a nuclear holocaust, Korea is the likely flashpoint.
Although one can peep inside Stalinist North Korea from the capitalist South, to set foot within that hermetic state requires a journey of several thousand miles--from Soul to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Beijing, and form Beijing to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. And this presupposes that the North Korean Embassy in Beijing will happily grant a visa to any itinerant Westerner requesting one--which, as this book explains, is not the case.

This book, then, is a collection of field observations and reflections by Clive Leatherdale who undertook two separate journeys to South Korea and North Korea. This book title comes from the familiar Korean folk tale of "dreaming of a pig" as a good omen of fortune and enrichment, the story that he was told by a student in South Korea. The writer makes a conscious attempt to draw parallels between his modern day travels and the earlier accounts of Westerners' travels to Korea's hermit-kingdom in bygone eras.

The Scariest Place in the World: A Marine Returns to North Korea

James Brady

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound Taps for a generation. It's been 15 years since Brady first wrote of Korea in The Coldest War, drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and The New York Times, which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was."

In the spring of 2003 Brady and Pulitzer-winning combat photographer Eddie Adams, a couple of old Marines, "gentlemen rankers off on a spree," flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. Recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." The two Marine veterans bond with this handful of youthful GIs confronting the loopy and nuclear saber-rattling North, in a contemporary Korea which just might become the war we have to fight next. Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served.

With consummate skill James Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war", the Yanks who fought there long ago or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world". The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heart-breaking, and this new Brady memoir proves as powerful as his first.

North Korea

Michel Poivert, Jonathan Fenby

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

An unprecedented photographic tour of North Korea that examines life under the Kims' totalitarian regime.

For more than half a century, North Korea has been the epitome of a rogue state. Since the defeat of the Japanese occupation in 1945 it has been a nation apart, ruled by father-and-son autocrats—the late Kim Il-sung, known as the Great Leader, and his successor Kim Jong-il, known as the Dear Leader—who have expanded the cult of personality to unparalleled lengths.

No regime, past or present, has ever created an environment of such ubiquitous propaganda. In finely orchestrated detail, flags, murals, and slogans praise the party, while monuments, statues, and portraits glorify its leaders. Philippe Chancel's neutral but sophisticated photographs explore how the political has been transfigured into an all-encompassing aesthetic. He shows us the wide, car-less avenues of Pyongyang—the capital city rebuilt to plans drawn up by the Great Leader himself—the Children's Palace, and the gigantic May Day Stadium, which seats up to 150,000 people. It is a remarkable scenography of a uniquely chilling reality. 129 color photographs.

Korea: Land of the Morning Calm

Chong-Sik Lee

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North Korea: The Bradt Travel Guide

Robert Willoughby

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A travel guide to the last Stalinist country 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 20 people found this review helpful.

No, I haven't been to North Korea, but who has? This was a quirky and fun book for an armchair traveller. The Bradt travel series prides itself on going where Lonely Planet fears to tread - places like Iraq and Kabul - as well as the world's most bizarre country, North Korea. The author briefly mentions how difficult it was to write a travel book where museum employees refuse to give opening hours or phone numbers of their establishments, and where special permits are required to travel from one city to another. I suspect the author could write a second book about what he went through to write this book.

Part I consists of 91 pages of background (history, politics, entry documents, etc.), and Part II is about 120 pages of typical travel information regarding hotels (not that you have any choice), restaurants, shopping (hahaha), attractions, and so on. There are 22 color photos, 27 maps, and some black and white drawings. A brief language guide gives translations of such useful phrases as "Yankees are wolves in human shape" - the author does have a sense of humor - as well as more commonplace words and phrases. There is almost nothing here about atrocities or the dire poverty that others have noted. However, the author does coyly mention that it would be pointless to write his book in such a manner that it was banned from being brought into North Korea.

Editorial Review:

This new Bradt guide explores every aspect of visiting North Korea, from day-to-day practicalities to an overview of the history that lies behind this troubled region and the culture that still unites the Korean people. While travelers are obliged to be part of a formal tour, there are plenty of possibilities for the more adventurous, including the Pyongyang International Marathon and the opportunity to traverse the country by motorbike. Routes outwards from the capital, Pyongyang, and via the Hyundai ferry from the South are explored in depth, ensuring that travelers are aware of both the possibilities and pitfalls of travel in this relatively untrodden part of the world. A whole range of information is provided--from red tape and security issues for the independent traveler to festivals and natural history of the mountain landscape for those wishing to explore the background of North Korea either while touring or from an armchair.

The Two Koreas (National Geographic Maps)

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