North Korean Review Journal

14/05/2026

📖 Books recommendations from NKR

Title: Nuclear Governance in the Asia-Pacific (Politics in Asia)
Author: Mely Caballero Anthony
Price: KRW61,969
Publisher: Routledge, 2024
ISBN: 978-1032130682
About: The contributors to this book explore approaches to building a framework for nuclear governance in the Asia-Pacific - encompassing nuclear safety, security, and safeguards/non-proliferation. Nuclear governance collaboration offers an avenue for states in the Asia-Pacific to address the emerging opportunities and challenges to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the civilian applications of nuclear and radioactive materials. The contributors explore the most critical nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation issues faced by states in the Asia-Pacific and the growing cooperation spearheaded by Southeast Asian countries, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. This book is a valuable read for academics working on security and strategic studies, international relations, non-traditional security issues as well as nuclear-related issues.

Title: The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment
2025
Author: The International Institute for Strategic Studies Price: KRW152,155
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781041104391
About: The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment
(APRSA) examines key regional security policies and challenges relevant to the proceedings of the lISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defence summit convened by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The chapters collectively examine how major security policies and trends across the Asia-Pacific are often significantly shaped by seemingly 'non-security' dynamics, from industrial globalisation to domestic and bureaucratic politics.

07/05/2026

📖Book recommendations from NKR
This week's books cover Human Rights in North Korea, and how North Koreans survive in China and Russia.

Title: 2025 White Paper on North Korean Human Rights (2025)
Author: NKDB
Price: USD 20 or KRW 20,000 (hard copy); Free downloadable (eBook)
Publisher: NKDB North Korean Human Rights Archives
ISBN: 979-11-90000-59-8

Title: The Machinery Behind the Forced Repatriation of North Koreans in China (2026)
Author: Donghwi Shin, Jian Lee, Yeosang Yoon
Price: Free downloadable (eBook)
Publisher: Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB)
ISBN: 979-11-90000-70-3

Title: Caught in the Net: China's Digital Surveillance of North Korean Refugees (2025)
Author: Donghwi Shin, Jian Lee, Soon Hee Lim, Yeosang Yoon
Price: Free downloadable (eBook)
Publisher: Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB)
ISBN: 979-11-90000-61-1

Title: Transnational Repression and Exploitation of North Korean Workers in Russia (2025)
Author: Unique Kim
Price: USD 20 or KRW 20,000 (hard copy); Free downloadable (Ebook)
Publisher: Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB)
ISBN: 979-11-90000-57-4

04/05/2026

📘 New on the NKR Blog:
"The School Organizational Life of the Jangmadang Generation: Changes in North Korea’s Collectivist and Individualist Culture"
by Cho Jin Soo (Senior Researcher, Institute for North Korean Studies, Yonsei University)

In this YIKUS Issue brief, Cho explores how the social dynamics and traditions of collectivist culture in North Korea are being loosened and eroded in the aftermath of the Arduous March. Cho investigates the emerging individualism among the in among the jangmadang generation and how that has emerged in North Korean school life, while noting that this "nascent individualism appears to lack the foundational elements of liberal individualism"

YIKUS Issue Brief No. 168Cho Jin Soo (Senior Researcher, Institute for North Korean Studies, Yonsei University) In January 2024, Unification Minister Kim Yung Ho stated during the New Year’s greeting of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council that “in North Korea, collectivism is declining as ...

04/05/2026

📖Book recommendations from NKR
These book recommendations cover North Korea's nuclear proliferation and the possibility of denuclearization.

Title: Fallout: The Inside Story of America's Failure to Disarm North Korea Author: Joel S. Wit
Price: US$38.00
Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 9780300278774

Fallout by Wit covers the USA's attempts to denuclearize North Korea over the past decades and the reasons why this has failed.

Title: Nuclear North Korea's Challenge to Deterrence Theories and Policies: Uncomfortable Truths
Author: Hwee-rhak Park
Price: €139,99
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham ISBN: 9783032053091

In this book, Park applies new nuclear deterrence theories and concepts to better understand North Korea's nuclear program.

These additional books look into life inside a nuclear North Korea, from defector accounts to the memoirs of North Korean diplomats:
Title: Cold War Comrades: An Emotional History of the Sino-North Korean Alliance
Author: Gregg A. Brazinsky
Price: £30.00
Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781009633314

Title: The Courage To Die: A North Korean Woman’s Escape and Rebirth in Freedom
Author: Eunhee Park
Price: US$13.99
Publisher: Independently Published ISBN: 9798275197792

Title: I was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service
Author: Han Jin-Myung with Nicolas Levi
Price: $16.99
Publisher: Independently Published ISBN: 9798251587517

30/04/2026

📘 New on the NKR Blog:
"Quietly Erasing the Great Leader in North Korea"
By Kim Myungse (Research Fellow, Yonsei Institute for Unification Studies, Yonsei University)
In this YIKUS Issue Brief, Kim explores the three generations of father-to-son succession in North Korea and how Kim Jong Un has renamed monuments to his predecessors despite the spirit of 'eternal succession.'

Read NKR blog to find out more about the "name erasure" of his father and grandfather what that might mean for their legacies and the North Korean people.

YIKUS Issue Brief No. 170Kim Myungse (Research Fellow, Yonsei Institute for Unification Studies, Yonsei University) It's common in most countries for a newly established regime to distinguish itself from its predecessor. This differentiation becomes clear through significant policy shifts when oppos...

16/04/2026

📖Book recommendations from NKR

This week's book recommendations cover North Korea's history from its ancient history to the colonial period under Japan and its recent contemporary history.

Title: North Korea: A History, Revised edition (2026)
Author: Michael J.Seth
Price: KRW 44879(Ebook)
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 1350475432
In this revised edition, Seth traces the Korea's history from the colonial period to the dividing of peninsula. The edition explores the birth of the DPRK, through economic collapse, famine and failed revolution, and illuminates North Korea's journey with an understanding of the political, ideological, economic and social forces at play. Above all, iit shows North Korea as a society with a hard-working, long-suffering population who have made great sacrifices in the hopes for a better future.

Title: The History of North Korea: Centuries Shaping the DPRK (The History of Countries) (2025)
Author: Skriuwer.com , Auke, Yahia Fathy
Price: KRW 23961 (Paperback)
Publisher: De Fryske Wrâld
ISBN: 978-3819717680
About: North Korea is one of the most isolated and least understood countries in the world, yet its history stretches back centuries before the regime that now defines it. This book covers that full span, from the ancient kingdoms of the Korean peninsula through Japanese colonization, the division of Korea, the Korean War, and the development of the world's most controlling state under Kim Il-sung and his successors.

14/04/2026

📘 New on the NKR Blog:
"Methodology of North Korea Studies and Systematization of Knowledge through Artificial Intelligence"

In this YIKUS issue brief, Kwon So Young, Senior Research Fellow at the Yonsei Institute for Unification Studies, investigates how artificial intelligence mixed with data science techniques can expand what and how we know about North Korea in the North Korean Studies discipline.
He posits that that diverse methodologies should be adopted within the discipline to better reflect North Korea's reality.
Read the translated article below:

YIKUS Issue Brief No. 158Kwon So Young (Senior Research Fellow, Yonsei Institute for Unification Studies, Yonsei University)Research on North Korea has progressed steadily despite epistemological limitations and challenges in data collection. The methodologies used in North Korean studies have gradu...

08/04/2026

📖Book recommendations from NKR
This week's book recommendations help understand North Korea under Kim Jong-un and how the North Korean economy has evolved.

In 'The North Korean Regime under Kim Jong-Un', Kim provides a comprehensive account of the DPRK under Kim Jong-un's leadership from nuclear policies and marketization to society and religion.
Title: The North Korean Regime under Kim Jong-Un (2024)
Author: Byung-Yeon Kim
Price: €129.99
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789819985241
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-8525-8

Park Philip in "History of Economic Management in North Korea" how North Korea's economic construction evolved from 1949-2023.
Title: History of Economic Management in North Korea: From Planned Economy to Socialist Enterprise System (2025)
Author: Phillip H. Park
Price: $225 (hardcover academic)
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032770567
https://www.routledge.com/History-of-Economic-Management-in-North-Korea-From-Planned-Economy-to-Socialist-Enterprise-System/Park/p/book/9781032771939

Books reviews of these books are welcome for the next 2026 NKR journal issue.
https://www.northkoreanreview.net/submisions

North Korean Review publishes two issues per year, one in spring and one in fall. Issues are published at the end of March and September.

06/04/2026

On the NKR blog: Interview with Anthony V. Rinna on the implications of the DPRK-Russia Strategic Partnership, and what it means for the Washington-Moscow rivalry.

30/03/2026

North Korea conducts engine tests for a missile with the capability of targeting the US mainland. As part of its 5-year arms build-up plan set in the 9th Party Congress, the test was meant to upgrade its strategic strike means.

The Korean Central News Agency reported the test was conducted as part of the country's five-year arms build-up meant to upgrade 'strategic strike means,' a term referring to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and other weapons