Book Review: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick

The Korean War never officially ended. To this day, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea engages in insane posturing and grandstanding, reminding the world that they have nukes while demanding food, all the while issuing apocalyptic threats worthy of Saddam Hussein aimed at South Korea, Japan, and the United States.

The posturing is no idle threat. While economists worry about how North and South Korea will integrate in the event of a future unification (most agree that even in a best-case scenario it will be vastly more difficult and uglier than the unification of East and West Germany), some observers fear that it is entirely possible that Kim Jong Il or whoever is in charge at the time might decide to go out in a blaze of glory rather than simply collapsing as the Soviet Union did. Should hostilities break out, even assuming no nuclear warheads are involved, North Korea has enough artillery within range of Seoul to flatten the city, home of 12 million people (and the US 2nd Infantry Division).

The South Korean and US response, of course, would probably leave everything on the North Korean side of the DMZ looking like the surface of the moon, but after reading Nothing to Envy, it’s hard to imagine that the North Korean people would actually be any worse off.

From the book’s website

What if the nightmare imagined by George Orwell in 1984 were real? What if you had to live in a country where radio dials were fixed to a single government station? Where the surroundings were entirely black-and-white except for the red lettering of the propaganda signs? Where you were required to keep a large portrait of the president on your living room wall and bow to it on national holidays? Where sexuality was repressed except for purposes of reproduction? Where spies like Orwell’s Thought Police studied your facial expressions during political rallies to make sure you were sincere not only in your speech but your thoughts?
This is a real place – the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea or North Korea. The Communist regime that has controlled the northern half of the Korean peninsula since 1945 might be the most totalitarian of modern world history.

George Polk Award and Robert F. Kennedy Award-Winning Journalist Barbara Demick’s NOTHING TO ENVY: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Spiegel & Grau) offers a never-before-seen view of a country and society largely unknown to the rest of the world.

( North Koreans have nothing to envy )

Verdict: A book worth reading. It puts human faces on a country that most people know only as part of the “Axis of Evil." We may worry more about Al Qaida than we do about North Korea nowadays, but that could change very quickly.

Book Review: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick

The Korean War never officially ended. To this day, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea engages in insane posturing and grandstanding, reminding the world that they have nukes while demanding food, all the while issuing apocalyptic threats worthy of Saddam Hussein aimed at South Korea, Japan, and the United States.

The posturing is no idle threat. While economists worry about how North and South Korea will integrate in the event of a future unification (most agree that even in a best-case scenario it will be vastly more difficult and uglier than the unification of East and West Germany), some observers fear that it is entirely possible that Kim Jong Il or whoever is in charge at the time might decide to go out in a blaze of glory rather than simply collapsing as the Soviet Union did. Should hostilities break out, even assuming no nuclear warheads are involved, North Korea has enough artillery within range of Seoul to flatten the city, home of 12 million people (and the US 2nd Infantry Division).

The South Korean and US response, of course, would probably leave everything on the North Korean side of the DMZ looking like the surface of the moon, but after reading Nothing to Envy, it’s hard to imagine that the North Korean people would actually be any worse off.

From the book’s website

What if the nightmare imagined by George Orwell in 1984 were real? What if you had to live in a country where radio dials were fixed to a single government station? Where the surroundings were entirely black-and-white except for the red lettering of the propaganda signs? Where you were required to keep a large portrait of the president on your living room wall and bow to it on national holidays? Where sexuality was repressed except for purposes of reproduction? Where spies like Orwell’s Thought Police studied your facial expressions during political rallies to make sure you were sincere not only in your speech but your thoughts?
This is a real place – the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea or North Korea. The Communist regime that has controlled the northern half of the Korean peninsula since 1945 might be the most totalitarian of modern world history.

George Polk Award and Robert F. Kennedy Award-Winning Journalist Barbara Demick’s NOTHING TO ENVY: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Spiegel & Grau) offers a never-before-seen view of a country and society largely unknown to the rest of the world.

( North Koreans have nothing to envy )

Verdict: A book worth reading. It puts human faces on a country that most people know only as part of the “Axis of Evil." We may worry more about Al Qaida than we do about North Korea nowadays, but that could change very quickly.