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The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters |  | Author: B.R. Myers
Publisher: Melville House
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Seller: SecondStoryBooks
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 8495
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 7.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 1933633913
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.375095193
EAN: 9781933633916
ASIN: 1933633913
Publication Date: January 26, 2010
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| • | ISBN13: 9781933633916 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
Understanding North Korea through its propaganda
What do the North Koreans really believe? How do they see themselves and the world around them?
Here B.R. Myers, a North Korea analyst and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, presents the first full-length study of the North Korean worldview. Drawing on extensive research into the regime’s domestic propaganda, including films, romance novels and other artifacts of the personality cult, Myers analyzes each of the country’s official myths in turn—from the notion of Koreans’ unique moral purity, to the myth of an America quaking in terror of “the Iron General.” In a concise but groundbreaking historical section, Myers also traces the origins of this official culture back to the Japanese fascist thought in which North Korea’s first ideologues were schooled.
What emerges is a regime completely unlike the West’s perception of it. This is neither a bastion of Stalinism nor a Confucian patriarchy, but a paranoid nationalist, “military-first” state on the far right of the ideological spectrum.
Since popular support for the North Korean regime now derives almost exclusively from pride in North Korean military might, Pyongyang can neither be cajoled nor bullied into giving up its nuclear program. The implications for US foreign policy—which has hitherto treated North Korea as the last outpost of the Cold War—are as obvious as they are troubling. With North Korea now calling for a “blood reckoning” with the “Yankee jackals,” Myers’s unprecedented analysis could not be more timely.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 A different perspective on North Korea March 14, 2010
Rob Bittick (Houston area, Texas USA)
B R Myers presents the reader with a very different view of North Korea than that normally portrayed in the media. The author argues that North Korea promotes a race based world view comparable to that of Imperial Japan, rather than Marxist-Leninist ideology typical of other communist states. Additionally, North Korea promotes a maternal view of the state rather than a paternal view, where the people are believed to be a virtuous child race. Consequently, this world view holds that the Korean people need a strong leader (i.e. Kim Il Sung) to guide them. This book contains many North Korean propaganda posters and art, along with excerpts from novels, poems, songs, etc. to illustrate the author's main points. Very informative.
 Not very good March 5, 2010
Customer
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is not a very good book. The author is writing outside his field, literature. There is no political science or solid historical research. He also did not cite political scientist Han S. Park, who deals with the same subject in _North Korea: The Politics of Unconventional Wisdom_ (2002).
The Best Book Ever Written on North Korea February 28, 2010
S. A. Wayman (APO, AP United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is the rarest of books: a genuinely original analysis that demolishes most of what we thought we knew about something, in this case North Korea. For decades, virtually all of us have blithely assumed that North Korea's ideology was Juche, Stalinism, Confucianism, or some combination thereof. Myers makes a meticulously researched, closely reasoned argument that it is none of these things. On the contrary, the DPRK is an ethno-centric nationalist state led by a beloved, androgynous Parent Leader. In Pyongyang's world view, Koreans are a pure, childlike race, virtually incapable of sin, or of surviving in a world of vicious foreigners. Thankfully, the Great Leader -- the mother-like Kim Il Sung -- is there to protect them, followed by the even more maternal Kim Jong Il. These innocent people are constantly threatened, of course, by those vicious, cowardly, hook-nosed Americans, who must be resisted at all costs. This analysis is of great value in itself, but it also has important policy implications, not the least of which is that since the Americans are the mortal enemies of the Korean people, genuine compromise with them on something like the DPRK's nuclear programs is unthinkable.
Until recently, virtually the only books available in English on North Korea (or even South Korea) were the tendentious, self-indulgent polemics written by Bruce Cumings, professor of history at the University of Chicago. Cumings was largely discredited long ago, and Myers finishes the job. It is hard to imagine he will ever be taken seriously again. Rather, for anyone involved in international relations or Asian affairs, "The Cleanest Race" is quite simply the best book ever written on North Korea, and, for as long as that wretched place endures, this book will be the definitive study of the regime and the starting point for all analysis of the DPRK.
I have a couple complaints: many of the North Korean propaganda pictures Myers uses to support his argument are so small one can barely make them out, and, incredibly for such an otherwise serious piece of analysis, this book contains no index. (Note to Myers: Next time, consider another publisher.) Perhaps these problems will be addressed in the next edition. But these are mere quibbles. All that matters is this: if your work involves East Asia or international relations, stop reading and order this book. Do it now. And resume reading the minute "The Cleanest Race" arrives.
The Lies They Tell Themselves... February 14, 2010
D. S. Thurlow (Alaska)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
2009's "The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" is author B.R. Meyers' thought-provoking survey of North Korean propaganda. In a highly readable and lavishly illustrated book, Meyers provides some useful insights into the lies North Koreans tell themselves, and the potential implications of those lies for US policy-makers.
At the core of the book is Meyers' thoughtful examination of decades of North Korean propaganda, from its founding by Kim Il Sung in 1945 right up to 2009 reports of Kim Jong Il's ill-health, concerns about a possible succession crisis, and relations with the US. Meyers' thesis is that the ideological basis of the North Korean state is paranoid rascist nationalism. He argues that outsider observers who see North Korea as the last Stalinist state or as an amalgam of Confuscism and Socialism may misunderstand Pyongyang's motives and actions. His conclusions bode poorly for current denuclearization talks with Pyongyang.
Propaganda is notoriously difficult to disect from the outside, especially when a pragmatic state plays one theme to its citizens and another to its enemies. Experienced observers of North Korea may therefore find much of interest in the book without necessarily agreeing with the author's every conclusion. "The Cleanest Race" is highly recommended to students of the Pyongyang regime as an insightful look at a closed society.
Could 'Our Great Mother' be evil? February 13, 2010
Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Fascinating, if true.
Frightening, because there's no good reason to suspect it's not true. Other reviewers emphasize the "personality cult" of Kim Il Sung and his descendants; may I suggest the current rulers are trying to create a "god cult" similar to the Egyptian Pharaohs.
Similar to Pharaonic Egypt, there is a constant emphasis on unification of the two lands; like the Pharaohs, Our Great Mother makes 'Horus-procession' tours of North Korea; the governing philosophy portrays their neighbours as constant enemies; they have a sacred duty to defend their "world order" against the hostile powers of chaos; and state dogma emphasizes the military and creative role of Dear Parent.
At this rate, some day North Korea will get a Moses to lead an Exodus to the nearest shopping mall "of milk, honey, TV sets amd washing machines" in China or Seoul.
It may well be that nuclear weapons and ICBMs are the 'Great Pyramid' of Parent Leader. Except for bolstering the image of Dear Leader, nuclear weapons are as useless as the original pyramids. Like the pyramids, perhaps the ICBMs and nuclear weapons will someday be a quaint tourist attraction.
Miroslav Verner in 'The Pyramids' (ISBN 0-8021-3935-3) describes the Egyptian concept "of the state as an expression of the divine will and the center of the harmonious and ordered world created by the gods." Myers doesn't use the same language, but he leaves the same impression of official attitudes in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. (In short, it makes the claim of "American Exceptionalism" seem like an exercise in undue modesty.)
Communism collapsed because it failed to deliver on its promise of the great material riches of a Workers' Paradise. In the DPRK, Dear Parent uses the opposite approach -- you are poor because you are pure. Thus, famine is a virtue; and American relief shipments of food are a tribute honouring that virtue.
Bizarre? The only unexplained anomaly is why Dear Parent is pleasantly plump. Could it be Our Great Mother is truly evil?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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