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The definitive account of North Korea - the most closed, frightening, enigmatic country on earth - its veiled past and uncertain future.

About the Author

Victor Cha is the former Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. He was the U.S. Deputy Head of Delegation for the Six Party Talks, concerned with security risks posed by the North Korean weapons programme. During his role as adviser to the White House he spent time in Pyongyang, and is in a unique position to comment on North Korean affairs. He is currently Professor of Government and Asian Studies and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University.

Reviews

Engrossing... It offers perhaps the best recent one-volume account of North Korea’s history, economics and foreign relations
*The Economist*

[This] excellent, comprehensive book explains as much as it is possible to explain the nature of this ‘impossible state’, how it has developed under the Kim dynasty and why it endures as a major thorn in the side of the global community
*The Times*

This scrupulously researched account provides an alarming insight into how a long-running nightmare for North Koreans could soon become a geopolitical crisis for the rest of us
*Sunday Times*

He uses his first-hand and often surreal experiences of dealing with North Korean officialdom to telling effect in the book. But Cha is also a scholar of Korean and Asian affairs, so can take a historical view of the North Korean problem and set it in its wider international context… [An] impressive analysis
*Literary Review*

Provocative, frightening, and never more relevant than today as an untested new leader takes charge of the world’s most unpredictable nuclear power
*Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent*