The Cleanest Race Reviewed
The "insightful and interesting book" gets "past the sanitized propaganda of the Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA) and its ilk to the stories and ideas that the North Koreans themselves see and hear," says Chris Green — The Cleanest of the Clean?
The book describes domestic propaganda as "a brand of racist 'paranoid nationalism' which asserts the innate moral superiority of the Korean people" with "more in common with the ideas of imperial Japan and Hitler’s Germany than the rest of the former communist bloc." The reviewer states that "the most important contribution the book is likely to make" lies in "its ability to take the reader from a historical overview of the birth of the North Korean state through to a convincing argument that, given its racist worldview, absolute lack of moral compass in international dealings."
The book describes domestic propaganda as "a brand of racist 'paranoid nationalism' which asserts the innate moral superiority of the Korean people" with "more in common with the ideas of imperial Japan and Hitler’s Germany than the rest of the former communist bloc." The reviewer states that "the most important contribution the book is likely to make" lies in "its ability to take the reader from a historical overview of the birth of the North Korean state through to a convincing argument that, given its racist worldview, absolute lack of moral compass in international dealings."
Labels: Norks in the News, Race Matters, Tyranny
2 Comments:
Have you read the book? I am reading it now and it is fascinating. I must say that I am a fan of B.R. Myers. I first became acquainted with the quality of his work with his review of Bruce Cumings' embarassing book on North Korea.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/09/mother-of-all-mothers/3403/
Myers also wrote a controversial book entitled The Readers Manifesto. This book is an attack on the pretentious literary prose of authors such as Annie Proulx and Paul Auster.
I have yet to read. I was unaware that he was the author of that other book, which I had heard of, as well. That's quite a wide range he covers.
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