As some of our readers are aware, the sleepy field of North Korean studies is now engulfed in a major controversy which, as time goes by, looks increasingly serious. NK News has already written about the emerging problem, and perhaps it is time to explain briefly what has happened and why our field is in such disarray.

In 2013, Cornell University Press published a book by Dr. Charles Armstrong, a professor at Columbia University, and a well-known specialist on North Korean history. The book, titled ‘Tyranny of the Weak’, was meant to be a general review of the North Korean