Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader : North Korea and the Kim Dynasty

Rating:
Summary: A Major Contribution!
Review: After more than 30 years traveling through, studying, teaching and writing about modern Asia I rarely come across books that are really all that helpful. Rather, most are full of material I already know folded in with a few nuggets of new information. That though is absolutely not true with regard to Bradley Martin's book, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty. The book is an absolute marvel of new information. From this professor's perspective this book is a wonderful contribution to the limited information available about North Korea and should be read by both professionals and the general public. I highly recommend it.
Steven A. Leibo Ph.D.


Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: "Oh.... Damn!" The words are mine, uttered not five minutes ago, when I
got to page 705. I simply could not put the book down and was wholly
unprepared for it to end. I believe I may already be experiencing
withdrawal symptoms.

I don't have a background in Korean studies, and fortunately, this book
doesn't presume any. I appreciated its accessibility to lay readers
like me. I've always been fascinated by North Korea and was glad
finally to come across something with more heft than a newspaper
article, but that didn't require a working knowledge of the Korean
language.

Bravo on a job very well done. I can't wait for the sequel.


Rating:
Summary: Essential to Understanding the DPRK
Review: I really loved this book. Bradley Martin is a reporter who has extensively travelled in North Korea and has met many of the Kim regimes ruling caste members. He paints an intriguing portrait of North Korea.

There are many chapters, but they basically break into three categories. These deal with the rise of the Kim regime, life in North Korea, and the future of North Korea. There is certainly overlap, but these are the primary categories.

The most difficult chapters are certainly those dealing with the rise to power of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. I say this because, as Martin freely admits, there are very complicated mythologies surrounding these characters. Mr. Martin goes on the assumption that there is a nugget of truth in all myths and tries very hard to find them. As an example, there is a myth that Kim Il Sung was the most important anti-Japanese guerilla leader who nearly single handedly ejected Japanese forces from Korea. After detailed and exhaustive research, the author shows that Kim was a moderately important guerilla leader who threw his lot in with the Soviet Red Army after being defeated by Japanese forces. In this way, Mr. Martin develops what could be the most accurate picture we have of the Kims' early days. If he is found to ever be wrong, it wont be for not trying hard.

The next set of chapters revolve around everyday life in the DPRK. He gets his information partially through his trips there, but more importantly through defector testimony. Needless to say, life in the Workers'Paradise sucks. There is little food (unless you are a high level party member) and there is a constant risk you will offend someone and wind up in a prison camp. Not much we dont already know, but Martin reveals much that is new. For example, the citizenry is completely loyal despite mismanagement and abuse. Even defectors cant bring themselves to criticize the Kims! And there is much much more.

Finally, Martin looks to the future. He shows us North Korea's first faltering steps to become connected with the world economy. He also delves into who may replace Kim Jong Il in the future. I wasnt too convinced with his argument that the West should negotiate on WMD issues, but he makes the argument pretty well.

One final note. The best part of this book is Martin's credibility. He seems to have no axes to grind. He has no problem revealing the bad aspects of the DPRK or the good. Mr. Martin comes across as a straight shooter. This could be what is most important in making this such a wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: DingBat Magazine Rave
Review: If you've been feeling nostalgic for the surreal weirdness of Mao's China, you'll feel right at home in North Korea under the Kim Dynasty. This brilliant, important book takes us inside the most closed society & political regime on the planet. With elegance, insight, and an eye for strange and absurd detail, the author paints a revealing, often eerie portrait of this mysterious realm. This is the kind of book that forces you to read passages to friends. For example, early on I was struck by this haunting paragraph: "Paradise? To a first-time visitor, North Korea seemed to be providing its people the basic necessities of life. But there was little sign of opulence and I never saw anyone cutting loose and having a really good time. Even on the May Day holiday, people seemed to be working-as actors, posing as merrymakers and subway passengers for the benefit of foreign visitors. A group of little boys in the uniform of the children's corps sat cross-legged in a circle on the ground in a park, playing a game. A couple of hours later they still sat in the same position, playing the same game, confounding the collective wisdom of the outside world regarding the attention spans of unsupervised eight-year-olds." 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. Absorbing and full of surprises, the book brings to life the frighteningly weird Kim Jong-il and a country whose future may well be cataclysmic.


Rating:
Summary: Necessary Corrective to Bruce Cumings
Review: Most of what Americans know about North Korea comes from Bruce Cumings, a communist sympathizer and diehard apologist for the Kim regime. Cumings is responsible for the pro-Kim and pro-Soviet 'Origins of the Korean War' where he argues that communists were wonderful reformers and the Soviet Union was a benign presence in the North while Americans were nothing more than imperailist-fascists and South Korea a hopeless nation of reactionaries. History has proven Cumings wrong on all accounts but to this day, he remains an influential voice in blamig the Korean problems ENTIRELY on the United States while making excuses for a regime that has turned every North Korean into an infantile slavish prisoner--mentally and physically--of the like of Kim Jong-Il and his cohorts. Kim is, in every way, the Orwellian communist pig, someone who preaches egalitarianism while leeching off the entire populace. Cumings, of course, argues that it's in the Korean cultural blood to be slavish and undemocratic; in other words, Koreans wouldn't understand human rights and democracy anyway so it's better for them to live under a strict 'marxist' egalitarian than under the parasitical capitalist tutelage of the United States. This is funny since Cumings has never made this excuse for the far less brutal and tyrannical regime in the South(military, democratic, and otherwise).
Brandley Martin's book is a welcome relief after yrs of Cumingism. Martin carefully details the accounts he's gathered over the yrs. A liberal, he has no particular ideological axe to grind. He admits he was once enticed by the idea that maybe socialism was better for Asia. But, unlike Cumings, Chomsky, and other suck ilk who regularly contribute to such rags as the Nation, Martin has the courage to call a spade a spade. North Korea is a totalitarian hell on earth. It's evil. To make excuses for North Korea is like making excuses for Stalin or Hitler.
Martin shows how North Korea, in its isolation, means little to the rest of the world, but at the same time, what with its nuclear program/geography/irrational leadership, threatens regional if not world peace.
millions of innocents oppressed, starving, imprisoned, brainwashed, and/or murdered by the Kim regime. After the glib and sneering Marxist history of Bruce Cumings that whitewashed the true nature of North Korea, we finally have a book by a man of principles and decency, a man who prefers truth over ideology.

Rating:
Summary: Fun to Read About- But I Wouldn't Want To Live There!
Review: Thank God we have a president and administration that refuses to suck up to this criminal regime and play their games. This is an excellent book but I would first read "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding North Korea" and "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" before tackling this one. While serving in the U.S. Army in the Republic of Korea, I developed a fascination for learning about North Korea. This book should especially be required reading for "liberals" who "care about human rights blah blah blah" because I don't hear any of them complaining about this place and demanding regime change. The author is thorough and objective but does not go out of his way to attack N. Korea needlessly. Pondering the "good qualities" of North Korea is like asking, "Other than THAT Mrs. Lincoln- how did you enjoy the play?" It boggles my mind that the world stands by and does nothing while this pissant country develops nuclear weapons, sends hundreds of thousands of its citizens to concentration camps, gasses them, starves them, kidnaps foreign nationals, assasinates people, and then blackmails the world with threats. I think the key to understanding this country is to understand the criminal mind. A true criminal sees him or herself as the victim and everyone else as the aggressor. This is how this country operates and I think it is why the left will not take a hard line against it. What is more troubling to me and what I wish the author would have delved into more is the line between perpetrator and victim in this society. Obviously, a police state cannot function without the willing participation of a large number of people. How it is that human beings can be some cruel to one another for no good reason is the real question. This book also does a good job of exposing the bankruptcy of communism as an economic system and worldview. Communism, especially a la N. Korea is a religion without God and any doctrine original sin. Thank God we live in a free country.

Rating:
Summary: Valuable for NK watchers, not the best introduction
Review: There is a lot of information in this book and will prove valuable in fleshing out a picture of the DPRK for those interested in the subject. Specifically, there is a large amount of very interesting defector testimony, much more than I have read in any other book on the subject. However, with the length of the book and volume of information at times the author struggles to keep the book organized and focused. This may prove a minor hurdle to newcomers to the subject, but, because of the opaque and mysterious nature of the subject, long-time North Korea watchers will probably be glad that the wealth of information and testimony was kept intact, even if some clarity was sacrificed as a result. Readers should not expect (and for the most part the author does not attempt) a straightfoward profile of the DPRK or the Kims. The author is a journalist, not a policy analyst, and his interest (thankfully) seems to be reporting as much information as possible, even if contradictory, rather than advocating any particular view of the DPRK or policy stance.

Rating:
Summary: Useful but not perfect
Review: This book is certainly extremely well-researched and sheds a great deal of light on the DPRK. I am definitely learning a great deal while reading it.

However, I skipped ahead to the author's conclusions about where the North Koreans are going under the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il. In my opinion, the author's notion that he will somehow see the light and become something less than the despot that he is is wishful thinking at its worst.

Yes, I agree that for Kim Jong-Il to do this would be the "rational" thing to do. But remember, we are talking about a man who allowed several million of his people starve to death in the 1990s while he poured billions of dollars into military spending and brought his country into a dangerous confrontation with the US.

Although Jasper Becker's book "Rogue Regime" is not perfect, I have to say upon finishing a reading copy that Becker has the clearer view of what the DPRK is. I agree with him that there is something profoundly immoral about the US doing anything that helps prolong the twisted, perversion of communism that unfortunately lingers in Pyongyang.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting reading but...
Review: This is a huge book (over 800 pages), but with very few dull parts, so it held my interest throughout. The author, a US journalist, visited the DPRK several times and gives some insightful accounts of his meetings with North Korean officials and his impressions of the country. His "biographies" of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are quite interesting, as are the numerous interviews with North Korean defectors. There are tons of footnotes.

My only gripe with this book is that it seems to be a plug for starting a North Korean version of Radio Free Europe/Voice of America. Nearly every defector is asked his/her opinion about such a service. No matter that North Korean radios are soldered so they can receive only the official and approved North Korean broadcasts...and penalties for "tweaking" a radio are severe.

Still, this book does a great job of giving the reader a look into North Korean politics and the Kim dynasty. Another excellent and even more fascinating book about the DPRK is "Comrades and Strangers," written by a Brit who lived and worked in Pyongyang for about 7 years.



Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: 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; 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. That is in spite of the fact that this book is too long and occasionally repeats itself. By sheer relentless accumulation of detail Martin succeeds here in giving us a full portrait of the Kims and their filthy little tyranny. If your entire knowledge of North Korea is taken from occasional newspaper pieces and hearsay, this is an excellent book with which to fill in the gaps and attain a more rounded understanding of that country, and of our options in dealing with it. Bradley Martin's final suggestion for dealing with Kim Jong-il is original and intriguing. In my opinion it is also naive; but in a situation where the U.S. has no good options, perhaps anything is worth trying. What is certain is that nobody in the U.S. State Department has the wit or initiative to attempt anything so unconventional. We shall, therefore, probably just stumble on trying to hold the status quo together until something horrible happens and we lose control of the situation. To understand the consequences of this "policy" for the U.S., for the world, and for the starved, beggared, brainwashed wretches in North Korea, Bradley Martin's book is required reading. [...]