North Korea

What Everyone Needs to Know

By: Patrick McEachern

Narrated by: Paul Heitsch

Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

In this book, former North Korea lead foreign service officer at the US embassy in Seoul, Patrick McEachern, unpacks the contentious and tangled relationship between the Koreas in an approachable question-and-answer format.

While North Korea is famous for its militarism and nuclear program, South Korea is best known for its economic miracle, familiar to consumers as the producer of Samsung smartphones, Hyundai cars, and even K-pop music and K-beauty. Why have the two Koreas developed politically and economically in such radically different ways? What are the origins of a divided Korean Peninsula? Who rules the two Koreas? How have three generations of the authoritarian Kim dictatorship shaped North Korea? What is the history of North-South relations? Why does the North Korean government develop nuclear weapons? How do powers such as Japan, China, and Russia fit into the mix? What is it like to live in North and South Korea?

This audiobook tackles these broad topics and many more to explain what everyone needs to know about South and North Korea.

©2019 Oxford University Press (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

A Concise Explanation of Contemporary North Korea

This audiobook provides an excellent, concise explanation of contemporary North Korea, providing historical and cultural context for easy understanding. This is a great listen for anyone looking to brush up on their knowledge of contemporary North Korea.

While the narration was generally good quality, some pronunciation of Korean words was incorrect, and inconsistent.

Very informative

A really good straight to the point book if you are interested in learning about Korea. I'm ready to use this knowledge watching Jeopardy.

A fine introduction with some structural flaws

This is a fairly difficult book to discuss. While it delivers on the promise of the description, it does not go into any greater depth or detail than the average person with at least passing familiarity on the North Korea situation might understand. A great deal of the book is dedicated to the situation in South Korea, which I appreciated, however, the book rapidly becomes redundant. Chapters will be dedicated to topics, only for the next chapter to largely regurgitate the same topic again. Perhaps this book is best viewed as a guide for quick facts on North Korea, as evidenced by the chapter structure. This might be fine for physical reading, but I cannot recommend this book be experienced in an audio format.

The narrator does a fine job, bordering between a historical lecture and a more eager journalistic tone. Some chapters are enhanced by the performance, others become far too dry.

The author does a fine attempt at presenting multiple perspectives, bringing up viewpoints from conservatives, progressives, Soviets, Americans, South Koreans, North Koreans, and more.

I believe that this book would be ideal if it was edited down to a shorter length, and better optimized for an audiobook format.