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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.
- Sales Rank: #259384 in Books
- Published on: 2006-01-10
- Released on: 2006-01-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.17" h x 1.55" w x 6.07" l, 2.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 896 pages
From Booklist
Under different circumstances, North Korea could be the subject of a Marx Brothers satire, with the elements of a pompous, ego-driven patriarch, a worshipful population, and a general aura of fantasy and illusion. But North Korea has a superbly equipped million-man army and an expanding nuclear weapons program. So this comprehensive examination of this totalitarian society and the two men who have dominated it is often terrifying. For a quarter century, Martin has covered North Korea while working for the Baltimore Sun, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. Using newly available material from Russian and Chinese sources, Martin offers surprising insights into the career and character of both Kim Il-Sung and his son, Kim Jong-Il. He strives, albeit with moderate success, to unveil the reality from the mounds of myth and distortions with which both men have surrounded themselves. But Martin's account is most chilling in his descriptions of contemporary North Korean society. And yet, as Martin eloquently illustrates in this important book, the control of the Kim dynasty may well be tenuous. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is, from all I have read, simply the best book ever written about North Korea. Relying largely on extensive interviews with defectors, Martin portrays North Korean life with a clarity that is stunning, and he captures the paradoxes in North Korean public opinion.” ―Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Review of Books
“Martin's massive book provides as useful a set of insights into life in North Korea as can be found anywhere.” ―L.A. Times Review
“As an AP correspondent covering South Korea in the 1970s, I learned quickly how difficult it was to discover any reliable information about that secretive, threatening regime to the north. Brad Martin's book is testimony to the thoroughness of his work, and the high level of his ability as a journalist and researcher.
North Korea is one of the least known, least understood countries in the world. Its leaders have always been enigmas, both frightening and fascinating, but almost impossible to decipher. Again today, it becomes vitally important that we do both, yet there is almost nothing of importance being written about the subject. Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is important, as well as fascinating. The research is impeccable, the writing excellent. This is a major and timely contribution, and essential to anyone who hopes to deal sensibly with a vital region of the world.” ―Terry Anderson, former AP correspondent and author of Den of Lions
“Brad Martin's Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader, a careful, penetrating analysis of North Korea, is more than just a book. Given the levels of secrecy which surround the Pyongyang regime and the danger it poses to its neighbors, Martin has rendered a considerable service to us all.” ―Bestselling author, David Halbertstam
“Brad Martin's book on North Korea is at once enlightening and frightening. It is lucid in writing, balanced in analysis, and comprehensive in its meticulous research and anecdotal evidence. The detailed exposition of the narrow life of luxury and the devious character of the 'Dear Leader,' Kim Jong-il, is scary. So is the description of North Korea as a corrupt, secretive, stagnant fief of the Kim family. Brad Martin, with his long years as a Pyongyang-watcher, is eminently qualified to write a book that should strip away any illusions America and the West have about Kim's dangerous regime.” ―Richard Halloran, former correspondent for The New York Times in Asia and Washington, D.C.
From the Back Cover
Subsisting on a diet short on food grains and long on lies, North Koreans have been indoctrinated from infancy to follow fanatically the despots Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader lifts North Korea's curtain of self-imposed isolation to offer in-depth portraits of its Orwellian leaders, taking readers inside a society that might seem to be from another planet.
This book is already being hailed as an Asian studies classic, rigorously researched and spellbinding in its storytelling. The chief U.S. envoy was photographed carrying his personal copy as he prepared to negotiate an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Now revised and expanded for the paperback, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader for many years to come will define a Spartan, stubbornly enigmatic society.
Praise for Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader
"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is, from all I have read, simply the best book ever written about North Korea. . . . Martin portrays North Korean life with a clarity that is stunning."
―Nicholas Kristof, The New York Review of Books
"An excellent book, well researched and lucidly written. It is especially refreshing to find someone showing serious interest in North Korean propaganda instead of merely hooting at it."
―B. R. Myers, The Atlantic Monthly
"A careful, penetrating analysis of North Korea."
--David Halberstam
"Rich with revealing detail . . . Given the appalling risks of military action, we should give the type of positive engagement that Martin proposes a serious try."
―Mike Mochizuki, The Washington Post Book World
"Of course no one is really certain what goes on in North Korea. . . . [T]here has been very little human intelligence of value over the last fifty years or so. . . . Bradley K. Martin has stepped into this breach. . . . Martin's massive book provides as useful a set of insights into life in North Korea as can be found anywhere."
―Warren I. Cohen, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Successfully combines history, society, travel writing, and political analysis in a way that makes it totally readable. . . . Must be the most comprehensive single-volume English-language book ever written on North Korea. . . . Overall, Bradley Martin has written a truly remarkable book, one that should be read by anyone even remotely interested in North Korea."
―Yoel Sano, Asia Times
"Cracking the cocoon of secrecy and propaganda surrounding North Korea is not a job for the faint of heart. Yet somehow Martin, a former Newsweek bureau chief, has pulled it off, presenting a scrupulously detailed, intimate portrait of the Kims, the world's only communist dynasty. He deconstructs the mythologized biographies of the father-and-son leaders, taking us inside their family feuds, harems, and fortified villas."
―Christian Caryl, Newsweek
"Fascinating . . . may be the best and most comprehensive English-language history of North Korea ever written."
―Jacob Margolies, The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)
"The most comprehensive and detailed look yet at the nation-sized theme park of Kim World is Bradley Martin's Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader. Mr. Martin paints a portrait of a national horror show demonstrating how ruthless, effective, and evil men can oppress their neighbors. . . . It reads like a medieval court, the Ottoman sultanate, or imperial China. . . . [T]he book paints a vast canvas of what must be as close as possible to hell on earth, other than in the very midst of war."
―Doug Bandow, The Washington Times
"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is a rich and rewarding book that anyone interested in this strange Leninist vestige should read. The sensational extravagance of the leadership; the dreadful sufferings of the common people; the ludicrous personality cults thrown up by both Kims; Kim Jong-il's need for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles (his possession of the latter is certain, of the former highly probable); the systematic destruction of normal life and language in North Korea―all this is laid out here for inspection. If I may be permitted a book reviewer's cliché: I couldn't put it down. . . . By sheer relentless accumulation of detail, Martin succeeds here in giving us a full portrait of the Kims and their filthy little tyranny."
―John Derbyshire, National Review
"Like Orville Schell's penetrating studies of China under Mao, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is destined to become a classic of Asian studies."
―Derek Pell, DingBat Magazine
"A page-turner with footnotes as interesting as the narrative."
―Get Lost Books
"Bradley Martin . . . portrays North Korea as a failed state with a dangerous weapon, but he explores as well the mentality of Mr. Kim and of his father, Kim Il-sung, whose leadership from 1948 to 1994 did so much to seal North Korea's fate. Kim Il-sung, Mr. Martin reminds us, once wrote: ‘One is pleased to see the bugs die in a fire even though one's house is burned down.' "
―Gordon G. Chang, The Wall Street Journal
"A detailed account of the world's most remote kingdom and its leaders, Kim Il-sung and ruling son Kim Jong-il. Martin's analysis illustrates that North Korea is a traditional more than a revolutionary society"
―Robert A. Scalapino, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and coauthor of Communism in Korea, JoongAng Daily (Seoul)
"It is often said that North Korea is the most puzzling country in the world. It is a difficult place to visit. The few journalists who make it there don't have the freedom to interview anyone they want. Its archives are not open to scholars. This does not mean, however, that no information is available on North Korea. It just requires a little bit more digging and interpreting. For the last three decades, veteran journalist Bradley Martin has been compiling his notes drawn from four trips to North Korea, patient scrutiny of official publications, and interviews with numerous defectors. His book Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader, an immense and detailed examination of North Korean history and politics, integrates much of the recent scholarship on the country and adds some new pieces to the puzzle. . . . The picture of North Korean society that emerges from the narrative is far more thorough and detailed than the usual monochromatic depiction of a monolithic state."
―John Feffer, Korean Quarterly
"I want to praise this book: In addition to providing a briskly written and even-handed treatment of the North Korean dictatorship, the author includes lots of interviews, and while he includes the background of the interviews, you can yourself give what credence you desire to what you read. . . . Like reading an account of the Rwanda genocides, reading this book certainly saddens one about the continuing tragedy of human oppression, all inflicted in ‘the name of the heavenly leader.' When centuries from now they tell of our times, I think they cannot fail to remark scathingly on this."
―John Howard Oxley, Strategy Page
"Excellent, highly readable overview of North Korea. I was looking for a book that would (a) go into the recent history and current state of North Korean society while hopefully being (b) well written and an engaging intellectual piece of work. This book succeeded admirably on both counts. It deals well with the history of Korea beginning in the pre-WWII era and continuing up to the present, and provides as detailed and fascinating an examination of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il as one could ever imagine reading in something written by an outsider. I enjoyed it immensely and feel like I now have a far better understanding of the forces at work in that very strange and dangerous little nation."
―Buckeye's Reviews
" ‘Axis of evil' member North Korea is not on the tourist map for most Western travelers, so its people and what their lives are like are mostly out of reach. Bradley K. Martin . . . moves North Korea within sight in this detailed account."
―Dan R. Barber, Dallas Morning News
"Under different circumstances, North Korea could be the subject of a Marx Brothers satire, with the elements of a pompous, ego-driven patriarch, a worshipful population, and a general aura of fantasy and illusion. But North Korea has a superbly equipped million-man army and an expanding nuclear weapons program. So this comprehensive examination of this totalitarian society and the two men who have dominated it is often terrifying. For a quarter century, Martin has covered North Korea while working for the Baltimore Sun, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. Using newly available material from Russian and Chinese sources, Martin offers surprising insights into the career and character of both Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il."
―Booklist
"This massive study of North Korea embraces its political and economic history over the last seventy years; the lives of its leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il; its diplomatic relations with South Korea, Japan, China, and the United States since 1945; its current crises regarding nuclear weapons and food shortages. . . . Martin, a former bureau chief for the Baltimore Sun, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek, has much to offer."
―John F. Riddick, Library Journal
"A sharp-eyed look at a cold and hungry outpost of the Axis of Evil. Former Newsweek bureau chief Martin first traveled to North Korea in 1979, and what he found was a near-religious cult of personality centered on the person of Kim Il-sung, known variously as the Great Leader, Fatherly Leader, Respected and Beloved Leader, and so on, a partial listing of whose reputed achievements ‘would have aroused the envy of a Leonardo da Vinci or Thomas Jefferson.' "
―Library Journal
"As a result of North Korea's isolation, it's been extremely difficult to get any information about what goes on inside the country, apart from the testimonies of defectors. That's why Bradley Martin's book, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, is so valuable . . . perhaps the most comprehensive look at the country yet."
―Lisa Katayama, Mother Jones
"The top U.S. envoy to North Korea is reading a book about the personality cult surrounding the leadership of the North, the world's most impenetrable state. When U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill arrived at a South Korean airport on Saturday for talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, he was seen holding a book titled Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty."
―Yonhap news agency, "U.S. nuclear negotiator reading book on North Korean leaders," Yonhap dispatch, Korea Herald, May 16, 2005
"Bradley K. Martin has been watching North Korea for a quarter of a century, and his important new book proves just how much it is possible to learn about that closed and secretive country through careful observation and analysis. Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader will immediately become an indispensable source for anyone trying to make sense of the modern North Korean state. This is journalism at its best―nothing so comprehensive and authoritative has been written about North Korea for thirty years. It is frankly amazing that a non-Korean could produce such a work."
―Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute,
author of The End of North Korea
"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is important as well as fascinating. The research is impeccable, the writing excellent. This is a major and timely contribution, and essential to anyone who hopes to deal sensibly with a vital region of the world."
―Terry Anderson, former Associated Press correspondent and
author of Den of Lions
"Brad Martin's book on North Korea is at once enlightening and frightening. It is lucid in its writing, balanced in its analysis, and comprehensive in its meticulous research and anecdotal evidence. The detailed expositon of the narrow life of luxury and the devious character of the ‘Dear Leader,' Kim Jong-il, is scary. So is the description of North Korea as a corrupt, secretive, stagnant fief of the Kim family. Brad Martin, with his long years as a Pyongyang-watcher, is eminently qualified to write a book that should strip away any illusions America and the West have about Kim's dangerous regime."
―Richard Halloran, former correspondent for The New York Times
in Asia and Washington, D.C.
"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is a must read for anyone serious about trying to understand what is happening and why it may be happening in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
―Tom Coyner, publisher of Korea Economic Reader
"The book is an absolute marvel of new information. . . . A wonderful contribution to the limited information available about North Korea and should be read by both professionals and the general public."
―Steven A. Leibo, professor of modern international history and politics, The Sage Colleges
"It's not enough to merely identify an enemy―you also have to figure out what makes him tick by listening carefully to his internal logic and investigating the myths he concocts about himself. That Mr. Martin so ably guides us to just such an understanding about a place as patently illogical to the outsider's eye as North Korea underscores what a marvelous job he has done. This is a truly excellent book―absorbing, terrifically written, and compelling."
―Tracy Dahlby, former managing editor of Newsweek International and author of Allah's Torch: A Report from Behind the Scenes in Asia's War on Terror
"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is terrific. Vastly informative, compulsively readable, it is without doubt the single best book ever written on North Korea."
―Mike Chiney, senior Asia correspondent, CNN
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Gives a new meaning to we will eat dirt and grass if that is required to get an A BOMB!
By THE AUTISTIC WEREWOLF
Insights too the dysfunctional family that is North Korea headed by a great leader father figure. This book reveals the contradictions and just plain bat-dung crazy stuff that passes for normal life in North Korea. This is a personality cult that has bested Stalin. Joe Stalin would have lived in constant despair and died with abject envy of the sick twisted police state North Korea has become. Compared to North Korea Stalin was but an upstart a primitive novice at building a personality cult driven communist police state. North Korea could have taught Adolf Hitler a few things about how to keep a people down using brain washing and internal re-education camps. The loving care of the fatherly leader yeah right, reading this book is almost sickening not because it is a bad book but because it is so good. This book reveals things about the daily suffering of the North Korean people that would make the normal caring human heartsick. I'm an old gray autistic werewolf not usually given to the weakness of human compassion but in this rare case even I was moved almost to tears at the suffering of everyday North Korean folks recounted faithfully in this book.
This book is awesome because the truth about North Korea must be told. It is hard to believe the things in this book are true because no one wants to think humans could do such evil to another. Read this book and you can taste the death and suffering in North Korea, every word has power within. It is funny the South Korean Flag has the Yin Yang opposites and in reality South Korea is an economic powerhouse a driving force on the world stage. While North Korea is hardcore Ultra Stalinist communist economic and social basket-case run into the ground by a succession of imbed family nut jobs. In its attempt to get atomic weapons a Pakistani leader said we will eat dirt and grass if that is what it takes to get an A Bomb.
In North Korea the government literally made its population eat dirt and grass in its head long drive to get an A-Bomb. It is sad really.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
700+ pages of text, each one worthwhile
By Samuel Martin
While this book serves as an authoritative history of North Korea and its two leaders, it does something more that demonstrates Martin's unique talent as an author and journalist: he is able to intertwine his personal experiences as a visitor to North Korea, interviews with refugees, and even a family member's recollections of serving in the Korean War without sacrificing his attempt to objectively tell the history of North Korea and evaluate the Kims. Indeed, Martin takes pains to ensure the stories he relates are not simply attempts to further an agenda and refreshingly he points out cases where his experiences or a refugee's statements may not adequately express the conditions being discussed. (As secretive as North Korea is, you can imagine that a complete picture of any event is difficult if not impossible to ascertain.)
Other reviews accurately describe the content of the book, from Kim Il-Sung's childhood through Kim Jong-Il's rise to power and his contentious relationships with foreign powers and the near-alien existence of North Koreans. Martin does not hold back from editorializing, but he only does so once he has exhaustively documented the subject he is evaluating, and his opinions are reasonably nuanced and qualified when the evidence merits it. His evaluation of Kim Jong-Il's seeming ambivalence towards juche-style socialism was very enlightening, and I must admit that I have a greater respect for the younger Kim (at least in terms of his intelligence) after reading this book. While I'm not entirely sure I accept Martin's argument that North Korea's nuclear production and missile tests were primarily motivated out of defensiveness, his reasoning is sound and cannot be dismissed out of hand.
This review is for the second edition which came out two years after the original and includes a new epilogue that was prompted by events that occurred in the time between editions. Seeing how events are unfolding, I will happily buy the third edition next year just to get Martin's insights on what is happening now. (In the meantime, he occasionally writes at [...], and I highly recommend reading those pieces.)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A Rare Glimpse into the Hermit Kingdom
By Michael Pope
I've always been curious about people and places that have voluntarily shut themselves in from the light of knowledge. North Korea is a prime example of this self-imposed worldwide exile. Being a veteran world history teacher, I know that without a doubt, North Korea is the most secretive, introverted, and downright clandestine country in the world.
With that established, "Under the Loving Care..." is a valuable instrument in the study of modern North Korea. Acting as a probe, if you will, the book slowly and meticulously peels away layers of secrecy to uncover the inner-workings of North Korea's teetering Stalinist (or "Kimilsungist") society. I have no doubt that I will be using some of the book's quotes in my classes.
In terms of chronology, author Bradley K. Martin begins with the last stages of the Korean War (technically a "conflict") and the establishment of Kim il-Sung's Stalinist-stlye communist regime in the early 1950's. The book ends around 2002, with modest predictions of North Korea's unstable future. Martin's journalist background is a definite plus, with over 100 pages of documentation and notes on the texts (No, I didn't read the documentation, but having over 100 pages of it comforts the reader knowing Martin obviously did his homework). And, surprising for a journalist, Martin's tone is one of striking impartiality. Though the book is over 700 pages in length, Martin deftly intertwines pure documentary history with interesting anecdotes from eye-witnesses and defectors, so as not to bore the reader. He even mentions juicy details of the Kims' secret sex lives, their hobbies and pleasures, and their relationships among family and close friends. A few chapters are devoted to life in the infamous work and prison camps, in which cannibalism was not uncommon. It reminded me of the book "Aquariums of Pyongyang" by Kang Chol-Hwan. As a teacher, I was especially interested in the education system and its effects on the psyches of young minds.
I think the most influential part of the book was the MANY interviews with defectors. The Q & A sessions were very revealing. Subjects covered were really just every-day occurances, but to hear these people talk about their "everyday" hardships made me feel guilty the last time I went out to eat with my wife (North Koreans often resort to hot water soup and boiled tree bark - I'm not kidding). Other Q & A's focused on methods of defection, life in the North Korean government and the armed forces, police interrogations, the famine in 1994, gender roles and marriage, and how North Koreans contrast the leadership of father Kim il-Sung and son Kim Jong-il. Martin also focused a lot of attention on the political relationships between the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan, and the former Soviet Union concerning their "problem neighbor", North Korea. A final interesting subject covered was, of course, the nuclear (Bush: "new-kya-ler") issue, and how North Korea's newfound nuclear capabilities influence recent diplomacy.
Martin's "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader" is a must-read for any North Korean enthusiast. A definite page turner - I'll be recommening this to my most devout students.
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