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Title details for Becoming Kim Jong Un by Jung H. Pak - Available

Becoming Kim Jong Un

A Former CIA Officer's Insights into North Korea's Enigmatic Young Dictator

by Jung H. Pak
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A groundbreaking account of the rise of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—from his nuclear ambitions to his summits with President Donald J. Trump—by a leading American expert
 
“Shrewdly sheds light on the world’s most recognizable mysterious leader, his life and what’s really going on behind the curtain.”—Newsweek
When Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea following his father's death in 2011, predictions about his imminent fall were rife. North Korea was isolated, poor, unable to feed its people, and clinging to its nuclear program for legitimacy. Surely this twentysomething with a bizarre haircut and no leadership experience would soon be usurped by his elders. Instead, the opposite happened. Now in his midthirties, Kim Jong Un has solidified his grip on his country and brought the United States and the region to the brink of war. Still, we know so little about him—or how he rules.
Enter former CIA analyst Jung Pak, whose brilliant Brookings Institution essay “The Education of Kim Jong Un” cemented her status as the go-to authority on the calculating young leader. From the beginning of Kim’s reign, Pak has been at the forefront of shaping U.S. policy on North Korea and providing strategic assessments for leadership at the highest levels in the government. Now, in this masterly book, she traces and explains Kim’s ascent on the world stage, from his brutal power-consolidating purges to his abrupt pivot toward diplomatic engagement that led to his historic—and still poorly understood—summits with President Trump. She also sheds light on how a top intelligence analyst assesses thorny national security problems: avoiding biases, questioning assumptions, and identifying risks as well as opportunities.
In piecing together Kim’s wholly unique life, Pak argues that his personality, perceptions, and preferences are underestimated by Washington policy wonks, who assume he sees the world as they do. As the North Korean nuclear threat grows, Becoming Kim Jong Un gives readers the first authoritative, behind-the-scenes look at Kim’s character and motivations, creating an insightful biography of the enigmatic man who could rule the hermit kingdom for decades—and has already left an indelible imprint on world history.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 28, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781984819734

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781984819734
      • File size: 26379 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      March 15, 2020
      The wild, improbable rise of Kim Jong Un. Although Kim jokes are a media staple, readers will find none in this grim but expert assessment by Pak, former CIA analyst and currently senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In the prologue, the author, who studied in South Korea as a Fulbright scholar, reveals that North Korea's existence owes much to Cold War politics. In 1945, Stalin installed Kim's paternal grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in the northern half of the newly divided nation. A fierce nationalist and no puppet, he yearned to unite Korea and sent his army south in 1950. He did not expect the U.S. to intervene, which it did, and the 1953 armistice saw borders largely unchanged but North Korea devastated. With Russian and Chinese aid, he rebuilt, establishing a bizarre personality cult in which adjectives such as "Orwellian" or "Stalinist" barely scratch the surface. His clunky command economy went into free fall in the 1990s after the Soviet Union and its aid vanished. However, despite widespread famine, Kim and his successor son, Jong Il, devoted enormous resources to building an arsenal of nuclear bombs and missiles. Jong Un succeeded his father in 2011. His Swiss education and love of basketball suggested a cosmopolitan outlook, but this proved illusory as he brutally demonstrated his power on the international scene and executed family members. His pugnacious actions, including bomb and missile tests, provoked Donald Trump to threaten massive retaliation, but then Trump announced a personal meeting where his deal-making savvy would supposedly persuade Jong Un to abandon his arsenal in exchange for American largesse. As the author documents, three summits produced only platitudes, but more are in the works. Pak--but not Trump--realizes that nuclear arms have promoted Jong Un, leader of a tiny, impoverished nation, to a peer of the world's superpowers, and he loves it. An insightful analysis of perhaps the world's most dangerous dystopia.

      COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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