THE CLEANEST RACE: HOW NORTH KOREANS SEE THEMSELVES, AND WHY IT MATTERS

Book ID/图书代码： 08885010B34914

English Summary/英文概要： 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.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 近來朝鮮半島局勢緊張, 對於整個亞洲，尤其台灣位處其鄰國，所受到的影響尤其顯著。
北韓人民是怎麼看待這個世界? 怎麼看待自己的國家? 他們的外交政策又和其人民的思想有什麼關聯?
以亞洲各鄰國的角度來分析, 北韓是個與世隔離, 採取鎖國政策的封閉世界。相較南韓近年積極對外宣揚推銷各項文化產業，我們對於北韓仍是一無所知。
北韓政府是怎麼讓人民對國家的施政感到滿意? 怎麼持續掌握政權? 一如本書封面，一位軍警依偎在國家主席金日成的胸口，正說明北韓領導人被塑造成母系社會的角色，原因也是幾乎所有北韓故事的主角，都是以女性出發，藉此宣揚北韓領導人對其國家展現的母愛。外人看來荒謬可笑的官方宣傳，其實也正是這個國家鼓舞人民還能存活至今的法寶。
本書更提出北韓政府至今仍利用日據時代的種族主義思想，催眠北韓人民是世界上最純淨的人種，正如領導人金正日是他們純淨人種的領袖，北韓政府正是以此方式征服民心。
本書是第一本針對北韓人民的思想所做的深入研究，身為國際北韓專業分析師的Myers博士以文化、文學和媒體剖析北韓人民未來的走向趨勢，揭開這個神祕國家的面紗。
http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=252
(Jennifer)

Awards/获奖情况：美國主流書評 (NY Times、Wall Street Journal、Publishers Weekly)一致推薦 <美國參議員 Mike Gravel 稱此書為一本了解北韓政治、經濟、文化的 「必讀之作」

A particularly nasty strain of racist propaganda has enabled North Korea’s dictatorship to maintain power, according to this fascinating cultural survey. An American-born, South Korea-based instructor of North Korean literature, Myers (A Reader’s Manifesto) combines his cultural and linguistic fluency with sharp analysis to throw light on one of the world’s most closed-off cultures. Examining North Korean books, news broadcasts, and films, Myers finds that the country’s supremacist propaganda can be traced to imperial Japan, which sought to convince Koreans that they were part of the "world’s purest race." Myers acidly discredits Western interpretations of North Korea as "hard-line communist" or "Confucian," noting the prevalence of maternal rather than paternal imagery and the societal scorn for the former Soviet bloc. Esoteric cultural markers-e.g., the heavy use of flashbacks in film and literature-are mined for compelling clues to the North Korean sensibility. Myers’ greatest feat is his explanation of how the regime has maintained power despite its failures in almost every area of governance-how it has convinced average North Korean citizens that shipments of U.S. food aid, for example, are actually reparations for past "Yankee" crimes. A sharp and smart introduction to one of the world’s most secretive societies. ---From Publishers Weekly

"Electrifying... finely argued and brilliantly written."---Christopher Hitchens, Slate

"Provocative... A fascinating analysis."---Dwight Garner, The New York Times

A "scary... close reading of domestic propaganda [that] goes a long way toward explaining the erratic behavior and seemingly bizarre thought processes of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il."---The Wall Street Journal

"There are few books that can give the world a peek into the Hermit Kingdom.The Cleanest Race provides a reason to care about how those in North Korea see themselves and the West. It is possibly the best addition to that small library of books on North Korean ideology."---Andrei Lankov, Far Eastern Economic Review

"Myers renders great service to the global foreign policy establishment with his lucid and well documented profile of the North Korean polity. If only it were made mandatory reading for all the stakeholder leaders, particularly the American establishment, who feel compelled to deal politically with North Korea. Maybe then, Myers’ wisdom might lead them to adopt the only possibly policy toward North Korea that will work: that of ’benign neglect.’"---Mike Gravel, US Senate 1969-1981

"In his new survey of North Korean propaganda, The Cleanest Race, B.R. Myers insists that the ongoing support of the North Korean public for the regime doesn’t reflect any great faith in communism. Instead, he argues, it is rooted in a kind of paranoid racial nationalism adapted from the Japanese fascism that flourished before World War II.... Myers feels that the racialism at the heart of the regime’s ideology will sustain it even as it fails to provide the prosperity it promises."---Laura Miller, Salon.com

About the Author/作者介绍： B.R. Myers 博士在德國杜賓大學(University of Tübingen) 取得博士學位。現任於南韓東西大學國際研究系主任並是《The Atlantic》的特約編輯。
Myers博士針對關於北韓的學術研究常在《紐約時報》《華爾街日報》和更多學術期刊發表專欄。

Format:电子手稿

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

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