For many in the West, North Korea is a secretive, reclusive, and enigmatic country, a rogue state that threatens the world with its nuclear program and ballistic missiles. Confronted with its numerous provocations involving nuclear tests and missile launches, however, the international community still has not formulated a coherent response.
So how do we understand the crisis on the Korean peninsula that has persisted well beyond the end of the Cold War? Christoph Bluth presents an in-depth analytical account of North Korea s development from a Soviet satellite to a failed state in the...