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North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and big brother is always watching. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney is one of the few foreign journalists to have witnessed the devastating reality of life in the controversial and isolated nation of North Korea. Having entered the country undercover, Sweeny posed as a university professor with a group of students from the London School of Economics. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ--the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins--are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready to punish disloyalty at the slightest sign of discontent. Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, Sweeney's North Korea Undercover pulls back the curtain, providing a rare insight into life there today while examining the country's troubled history and addressing important questions about its uncertain future.… (meer)
Though titled "North Korea Undercover", less than 50% of the book is about his travel in the country. Sweeney had to pad the book with the history and politics of North Korea. He had to do so, otherwise, there is nothing much for him to write. After a while, the trip had become monotonous. All the attractions feel manufactured and there are statues of the two Kims everywhere. You know the country not by what's there but by what's not there. Of note is also Sweeney's irreverent tone towards the country. Overall, not too bad a read. ( )
A good summary of North Korea overall with some personal anecdotes from the author's visit. Nothing particularly new to me, and no deep or novel analysis, but there isn't a lot of information about North Korea, and the combination of a personal visit (to film an underground documentary) and general data seems to work well. Very approachable. Also includes references to several other first person books written by defectors which would be great to read if you want to learn more. ( )
Where was the editor? The book could really take advantage of a couple of revisions. Random callbacks, multiple repetitions, pointless asides - it hardly reads like a book and more like a long interview where you can't go back and restructure your statements as if it was written in one sitting. It was also read in one sitting. Still a good read. ( )
Can you imagine writing a history of the USA from circa 1940-present, by relying on the testimony of a couple kidnapped people, a couple defectors, a couple former government leaders, and a couple ambassador types? This book is repetitive and rambling, and represents a valiant effort to describe a surreal, psycho, government, based on an 8 day tour and a handful of witness testimonies. Often funny, in a twisted, apocalyptic, dystopian disturbing way. ( )
In North Korea Undercover, Sweeney provides a very irreverent look inside North Korea. Sweeney, who does work for the BBC, joined a tour group as a 'professor'. He visited a hospital with no patients, a factory where nothing is built, museums devoted to Kim I and Kim II filled with little more than junk. Under the scrutiny of two 'minders', the most common phrase heard was 'no photos'. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
The Air Koryo jet floated down to earth, the ground below treeless, bleak. - Introduction
Of the five most creepy buildings in the world - the squat grey toad of the KGB/FSB head office in Lubyanka Square, Moscow; the alien spaceship-like Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang; the Church of Scientology's blue concrete angel on L Ron Hubbard Way in LA; Enver Hoxha's marble pyramid mausoleum in Tirana, Albania; and the Pyongyang Planetarium - the latter is the creepiest.
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Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
They will probably only be free to come and go as they wish when the Kim dynasty is dead, and on that day I shall go to 'Excellent Horse-like Lady' on the internet, and press play, and raise a glass to poor Hyon, dead or alive, and Ali and Doina, long dead, and all the others condemned to exist inside North Korea's living death.
North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and big brother is always watching. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney is one of the few foreign journalists to have witnessed the devastating reality of life in the controversial and isolated nation of North Korea. Having entered the country undercover, Sweeny posed as a university professor with a group of students from the London School of Economics. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ--the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins--are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready to punish disloyalty at the slightest sign of discontent. Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, Sweeney's North Korea Undercover pulls back the curtain, providing a rare insight into life there today while examining the country's troubled history and addressing important questions about its uncertain future.
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