Many of North Korea’s most unique features, now set in stone, were defined in the first months of its existence: between August and September 1945.

Unfortunately, this period is not widely covered in history books. Although it was on August 15 that Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan, the majority of authors begin the story of North Korea in  October 1945, when the new political system had already been born.

In recent years, I’ve been conducting research into the earliest days of North Korea, much of which ended up in my recently-released book. In this