March 21, 2023
Opinion

Book review: A history of North Korea found nowhere else

‘The North Korean Army’ mines sources in multiple languages to deliver rich but accessible account of the DPRK

Far too many analysts and scholars of the two Koreas don’t speak a word of the Korean language and don’t know their “pajeon” from their Panmunjom. For the uninitiated, the former is a wonderful fritter enjoyed with rice wine, while the latter is a location on the inter-Korean border where Korean leaders meet and bullets occasionally fly.

In fairness, the difficulties of the Korean language are immense, to say nothing of the often dull intricacies of North Korean propaganda.