The Hermit King
The Dangerous Game of Kim Jong Un
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Narrated by:
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Chung Min Lee
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Greta Jung
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By:
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Chung Min Lee
About this listen
This program includes an author's note read by the author.
North Korea is poised at the crossroads of history. Which direction will its leader take?
Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability.
In The Hermit King, Asian geopolitical expert Chung Min Lee tells the story of the rise of the Kim Dynasty and its atrocities, motivations, and diplomatic goals. He also discusses the possible outcomes of its aggressive standoff with the world superpowers.
Kim Jong Un is not a crazed "Rocket Man" or a bumbling despot; he has been groomed since birth to take control of his country and stay in power at all costs. He is now at a fateful crossroads. Will he make good on decades of threats, liberalize North Korea and gain international legitimacy, or watch his regime crumble around him? Lee analyzes the likelihood and consequences of each of these possibilities, cautioning that in the end, a humanitarian crisis in the region is all but unavoidable. The Hermit King is a thoughtful and compelling look at the most complicated diplomatic situation on Earth.
©2019 Chung Min Lee (P)2019 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the 20th century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.
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Great book, but the narration has serious flaws
- By Anonymous User on 08-03-20
By: Vincent Bevins
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The Cold War
- A World History
- By: Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 22 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.
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A lenghy treatise on the Cold War
- By Anonymous User on 11-21-17
By: Odd Arne Westad
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The Shadow Commander
- Soleimani, the US, and Iran’s Global Ambitions
- By: Arash Azizi
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Until his assassination by US drone strike in January 2020, commander Qassem Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran and the military spearhead for Iranian foreign policy, enacting the wishes of the country's Supreme Leader in the region. A widely popular but also feared maverick operator, he helped to establish the Islamic Republic as a major force in the Middle East, with interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. This was a long way from where he began as a youth, living on the margins in a country ruled by a monarch supported by the United States.
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Rather disappointing
- By Anonymous User on 01-19-21
By: Arash Azizi
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China and Japan
- Facing History
- By: Ezra F. Vogel
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back 1,500 years. But today, their relationship is strained. China's military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan's brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years, less than 10 percent of each population had positive feelings toward the other, and both countries insist that the other side must deal openly with its history before relations can improve. Ezra Vogel's China and Japan examines key turning points in Sino-Japanese history.
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China & Japan is first rate by a top scholar
- By Anonymous User on 06-17-20
By: Ezra F. Vogel
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The Nazi Menace
- Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Road to War
- By: Benjamin Carter Hett
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in Eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history.
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Bad Melodramatic Reading
- By Anonymous User on 08-18-20
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The Russia Conundrum
- How the West Fell for Putin's Power Gambit—and How to Fix It
- By: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Martin Sixsmith - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime—and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey.
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This should be required reading!
- By Anonymous User on 10-29-22
By: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and others
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The Bhutto Dynasty
- The Struggle for Power in Pakistan
- By: Owen Bennett-Jones
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day.
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Excellent coverage of the dynasty
- By Anonymous User on 04-26-21
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The Fight of Our Lives
- My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World
- By: Iuliia Mendel
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya, Iuliia Mendel
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In this frank and moving inside account, Zelenskyy’s former press secretary tells the story of his improbable rise from popular comedian to the president of Ukraine. Mendel had a front row seat to many of the key events preceding the 2022 Russian invasion. From attending meetings between Zelenskyy and Putin and other European leaders, visiting the front lines in Donbas, to fielding press inquiries after the infamous phone calls between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
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Just Great!
- By Anonymous User on 09-20-22
By: Iuliia Mendel
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To Build a Better World
- Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth
- By: Philip Zelikow, Condoleezza Rice
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form.
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Valuable historical narrative
- By Anonymous User on 04-07-22
By: Philip Zelikow, and others
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Pakistan on the Brink
- The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
- By: Ahmed Rashid
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.
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A Very Long NPR-like Interview and History Lesson
- By Anonymous User on 04-23-12
By: Ahmed Rashid
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Putin's World
- Russia Against the West and with the Rest
- By: Angela Stent
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Putin's World examines the country's turbulent past, how it has influenced Putin, the Russians' understanding of their position on the global stage and their future ambitions—and their conviction that the West has tried to deny them a seat at the table of great powers since the USSR collapsed.
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More like The West against the world
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-20
By: Angela Stent
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Democracy
- Stories from the Long Road to Freedom
- By: Condoleezza Rice
- Narrated by: Grace Angela Henry
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice has served on the front lines of history. As a child, she was an eyewitness to a third awakening of freedom, when her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, became the epicenter of the civil rights movement for black Americans. In this book, Rice explains what these epochal events teach us about democracy.
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A Case for Democracy
- By Jean on 05-18-17
By: Condoleezza Rice