I'm torn about this book; it's divided roughly into thirds, with one being very good, one being interesting but dry, and one being pretty boring and pointless. The first third is a biography of Kim Il-Sung, covering from his birth up to his son taking over most of the power in Korea, and this part's easy to recommend as the author gives a interesting and informative history of both Kim and the development of North Korea. After this the book goes into the second section, which is a large batch of interviews with defectors. This kind of primary source is pretty interesting at first, but between the sheer volume of them and the fact that the author just presents the interviews without any kind of narrative thread eventually made me start skipping pages.
This comes to the last section of the book, which I just recommend skipping; the author speculates on the future of North Korea, and it seems like the book's editor didn't read this far as it's quite disjointed. A large part of it also deals with the question of who will succeed Kim Jong-Il, which was a good question in 2006, but has been answered pretty definitively at this point.
All of this makes a book that's difficult to recommend. I would say get it out of the local library, read the first half, and return it.
Grade: B
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