Friday, September 12, 2014

North Korea Undercover by John Sweeny

I'm trying to expand my horizons by reading more non mystery books, I have become especially enthralled with books about Politics and History. I expect myself to read and review more and more books from this genre. I will continue to read mysteries but those are going to be rare as I have already read most of Carr, Christie and Sharadindu but will always be on the lookout for exceptional mystery novels. To the book review now...

John Sweeny, a former BBC correspondent for Panorama, travels to North Korea with a bunch of LSE students. John poses as a Professor of LSE to gain access to the enigmatic state. Free media is not allowed inside South Korea's poor cousin so John and his crew had to go undercover. BBC crew and the LSE students travel to different places in North Korea, starting from the capital city Pyongyang. All along the trip they are accompanied by minders who carefully plan their trip so the "tourists" are never able to see the real face of the totalitarian state, but that does not prevent the tourists to get a good glimpse of the horrors and absurdity that prevail in the communist nation. John keeps describing in each chapter the different places he visits in DPRK(official name of North Korea). He also keeps referencing to the immediate history of North Korea, how Kim Il-Sung took over North Korea n 1948 with the help of his Soviet allies and established a cult of personality in the country which would later be maintained and expanded by his son, Kim Jong-Il, who the author keeps referring to mockingly as "Bad Elvis" because of his obsession with Elvis Presley, the regime is now run by Kim 3, Kim Jong-Un, who according to the author is the Fat Kim.

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