Overview

For years, watchers of North Korea have told the world what motivates Kim Jong II and many misconceptions exist. B.R. Myers, leading North Korea analyst, challenges these. He argues more is known about the country's nuclear programme than motivations behind it and more about Kim Jong II's potential successors than the unique world view which they all share. Drawing from decades of research on ideology and propaganda, Myers disproves the common fallacy that North Korea is the last bastion of Stalinism.

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9781935554349

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Electrifying... finely argued and brilliantly written. <br>--Christopher Hitchens, Slate <br> Provocative... A fascinating analysis. <br>--Dwight Garner, The New York Times <br>A scary... close reading of domestic propaganda [that] goes a long way toward explaining the erratic behavior and seemingly bizarre thought processes of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. <br> --The Wall Street Journal <br> <br> There are few books that can give the world a peek into the Hermit Kingdom. The Cleanest Race provides a reason to care about how those in North Korea see themselves and the West. It is possibly the best addition to that small library of books on North Korean ideology. <br>--Andrei Lankov, Far Eastern Economic Review <br> Myers renders great service to the global foreign policy establishment with his lucid and well documented profile of the North Korean polity. If only it were made mandatory reading for all the stakeholder leaders, particularly the American establishment, who fe

Electrifying... finely argued and brilliantly written. --Christopher Hitchens, Slate <br> Provocative... A fascinating analysis. --Dwight Garner, The New York Times <br> A scary... close reading of domestic propaganda [that] goes a long way toward explaining the erratic behavior and seemingly bizarre thought processes of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. --The Wall Street Journal <br> Myers' book is worth buying and reading. -- The Quarterly Review<br> <br> North Korean propaganda (the other pillar of which is a sort of race-based nationalism) is surprisingly effective at engendering a significant degree of mass support, B.R. Myers writes in The Cleanest Race, the definitive book on the subject. --The Atlantic <br> There are few books that can give the world a peek into the Hermit Kingdom. The Cleanest Race provides a reason to care about how those in North Korea see themselves and the West. It is possibly the best addition to that small library of books on North Korean ideology. <br>--Andrei Lankov, Far Eastern Economic Review <br> Myers renders great service to the global foreign policy establishment with his lucid and well documented profile of the North Korean polity. If only it were made mandatory reading for all the stakeholder leaders, particularly the American establishment, who feel compelled to deal politically with North Korea. Maybe then, Myers' wisdom might lead them to adopt the only possibly policy toward North Korea that will work: that of 'benign neglect.' <br> --Mike Gravel, US Senate 1969-1981 <br> In his new survey of North Korean propaganda, The Cleanest Race, B.R. Myers insists that the ongoing support of the North Korean public for the regime doesn't reflect any great faith in communism. Instead, he argues, it is rooted in a kind of paranoid racial nationalism adapted from the Japanese fascism that flourished before World War II.... Myers feels that the racialism at the heart of the regime's ideology wil

Author Information

B.R. Myers was born in New Jersey and raised in Bermuda, South Africa and Germany. He has a Ph.D. in North Korean Studies from the University of Tübingen in Germany. His books include Han Sorya and North Korean Literature (Cornell East Asia Series, 1994) and A Reader’s Manifesto (Melville House, 2002). At present he directs the international studies department at Dongseo University in South Korea. In addition to writing literary criticism for the American magazine The Atlantic, of which he is a contributing editor, Myers regularly contributes articles on North Korea to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and academic publications.

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