Kim Jun Hyok. DPRK-US Showdown.Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 2014

Should we read the latest English-language propaganda coming out of North Korea?

One of the newest books from the Foreign Language Bookstore in Pyongyang – DPRK-U.S. Showdown – will prompt even the reader most sympathetic to the DPRK to grapple with that question. Rife with vitriol and falsehoods, the book leads one to ask if there is any productive purpose in reading North Korea’s version of history.

Put these feelings aside. Foreigners, and especially Americans, should continue to read the newest works out of Pyongyang in English and –