Separated at Birth: How North Korea Became the Evil Twin - Hardcover

"Written with solid research from a soldier-scholar's perspective and sensitive feel for history, this book is very readable and replete with insights on Korean and Japanese culture, particularly as they pertain to current challenges on the Korean Peninsula. It is a 'must read' for all military, diplomatic, and commercial people posted to the Far East." --General John Wickham, USA (retired) Former Chief of Staff US Army and CINC in Korea. "In the rogue's gallery of terrorist states, North Korea occupies a darkly prominent place. Its membership in the "axis of evil" is richly and dangerously deserved---and did not develop overnight. This book is indispensable to understanding how North Korea became one of the world's worst human rights violators and weapons proliferators---and how we should deal with this rogue, before it's too late."--Monica Crowley, Ph.D., Fox News Channel, WABC Radio

He stands five foot two in stocking feet, adding two inches to his dumpy physique with elevated shoes. He has taken a country blessed with natural resources and an educated populace with a dedicated work ethic and reduced it to the level of the most abysmal third-world pesthole. He has assassinated foreign statesmen, blown up civilian airlines loaded with innocent passengers, and sold weapons to terrorists around the world. He is diverting resources that his country cannot spare to accelerate a program whereby he can become a nuclear power capable of proliferating weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups in return for hard cash. He has surrounded himself with sycophants and toadies, lives in hedonistic luxury, and threatens his neighbours and the world with nuclear weapons. Who is this strange person? Heis Kim Jong Il, aberrant ruler of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - or North Korea. There were good and sufficient reasons for President George W. Bush to declare North Korea a charter member of the "Axis of Evil." Americans heard him and wondered: Just what is going on over there that makes it such a threat? Separated At Birth addresses those concerns, exploring North Korea's twentieth-century history, its separation from South Korea, as well as its place in the East and its relation to China, the U.S., and Japan.