Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader offers in-depth portraits of North Korea's two ruthless and bizarrely Orwellian leaders, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. Lifting North Korea's curtain of self-imposed isolation, this book will take readers inside a society, that to a Westerner, will appear to be from another planet. Subsisting on a diet short on food grains and long on lies, North Koreans have been indoctrinated from birth to follow unquestioningly a father-son team of megalomaniacs. To North Koreans, the Kims are more than just leaders. Kim Il-Sung is the country's leading novelist, philosopher, historian, educator, designer, literary critic, architect, general, farmer, and ping-pong trainer. Radios are made so they can only be tuned to the official state frequency. "Newspapers" are filled with endless columns of Kim speeches and propaganda. And instead of Christmas, North Koreans celebrate Kim's birthday--and he presents each child a present, just like Santa. The regime that the Kim Dynasty has built remains technically at war with the United States nearly a half century after the armistice that halted actual fighting in the Korean War. This fascinating and complete history takes full advantage of a great deal of source material that has only recently become available (some from archives in Moscow and Beijing), and brings the reader up to the tensions of the current day. For as this book will explain, North Korea appears more and more to be the greatest threat among the Axis of Evil countries--with some defector testimony warning that Kim Jong-Il has enough chemical weapons to wipe out the entire population of South Korea. As a journalist, Bradley K. Martin has covered Korea and other parts of Asia for over two decades, including stints as bureau chief for The Baltimore Sun, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Asia Times (for which he wrote a "Pyongyang Watch" column), and Asian Financial Intelligence. Since 1979, Martin has had four prolonged stays in North Korea and more direct access to the country than most any other American journalist. He is currently a journalist-in-residence at Louisiana State University. This unprecedented study offers detailed portraits of North Korea's two ruthless and bizarrely Orwellian leaders, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il: a father-son team of megalomaniacs. In so doing, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader fully documents a culture, society, political structure, economic history, and national hierarchy—the seven-decade development of an entire country—that will fascinate and perhaps confound Western students and scholars.To North Koreans, we find, the Kims are more than just leaders. Kim Il-Sung is the country's leading novelist, philosopher, historian, educator, designer, literary critic, architect, general, farmer, and ping-pong trainer. Radios in North Korea are manufactured so that they can only be tuned to the official state frequency. Newspapers are filled with endless columns of Kim speeches and propaganda. And instead of Christmas, North Koreans celebrate Kim's birthday—during which he presents each child with a present, just like Santa. The regime that the Kim Dynasty has built remains technically at war with the United States nearly fifty years after the armistice that halted actual fighting in the Korean War. This engrossing, well-researched, and complete history, the work of a widely respected journalist, draws on a great deal of source material that has only recently become available (some from archives in Moscow and Beijing), and thus brings us all the way up to the tensions behind today's headlines. Defectors say Kim Jong-Il now has—in addition to nuclear bombs—enough chemical weapons to wipe out the entire population of South Korea. Under the circumstances, Martin cautions, negotiation is far more promising than the highly risky alternative of forcible regime change. "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is, from all I have read, simply the best book ever written about North Korea. Relying largely on extensive interviews with defectors, Martin portrays North Korean life with a clarity that is stunning, and he captures the paradoxes in North Korean public opinion."—Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Review of Books "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is, from all I have read, simply the best book ever written about North Korea. Relying largely on extensive interviews with defectors, Martin portrays North Korean life with a clarity that is stunning, and he captures the paradoxes in North Korean public opinion."—Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Review of Books"[Veteran journalist] Martin's massive book provides as useful a set of insights into life in North Korea as can be found anywhere . . . He accumulates persuasive evidence about the indoctrination of children, the brutality of the gulags, and the persistent famine that began in the 1990s . . . [Kim Jong-Il] may be a brutal despot presiding over a corrupt regime, but Martin is convinced that serious negotiations are possible."—Warren I. Cohen, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A careful, penetrating analysis of North Korea . . . Martin has rendered a considerable service to us all."—David Halberstam"Many fascinating insights [are] offered in Bradley Martin's comprehensive survey of the Kims and the nation they created. Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is a rich and rewarding book that anyone interested in this strange Leninist vestige should read. The sensational extravagance of the leadership; the dreadful sufferings of the common people; the ludicrous personality cults thrown up by both Kims; Kim Jong-Il's need for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles (his possession of the latter is certain, of the former highly probable); the systematic destruction of normal life and language in North Korea: all of this is laid out here for inspection. If I may be permitted a book reviewer's cliché: I couldn't put it down . . . Martin's book is required reading."—John Derbyshire, National Review"This brilliant, important book takes us inside the most closed society and political regime on the planet. With elegance, insight, and an eye for strange and absurd detail, the author paints a revealing, often eerie portrait of this mysterious realm . . . Like Orville Schell's penetrating studies of China under Mao, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader is destined to become a classic of Asian Studies. Absorbing and full of surprises, the book brings to life the frighteningly weird Kim Jong-Il and a country whose future may well be cataclysmic."—Dingbat Magazine"A page-turner with footnotes as interesting as the narrative."—Get Lost Books"This massive study of North Korea embraces its political and economic history over the last 70 years; the lives of its leaders, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il; its diplomatic relations with South Korea, Japan, China, and the United States since 1945; its current crises regarding nuclear weapons and food shortages; and memories of the author's [visits there] . . . Martin, a former bureau chief for the Baltimore Sun, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek, has much to offer [and] the discerning reader can gain much from this work."—Library Journal "A sharp-eyed look at a cold and hungry outpost of the Axis of Evil. Former News Read Less