Nothing To Envy Ordinary Lives In North Korea Summary

Book Review
I decided to do my review on “Nothing to Envy ordinary lives in North Korea” by Barbara Demick. After reading this book and seeing what they people went through in North Korea at the time made me grateful for the life I have now. The author intake over 15 year time length help better understand the social problems in North Korea that evolved over time. There resources was extremely limited especially when it came to the famine. The reason I am stating this first is because this was an important part of the book. The famine killed one fifth of the Korean population at the time. I personally, did not know this event even occurred. This book overall, just introduced so much information that I was unaware of. In fact, being American makes me more

This brings me to the government, and the author belief of North Korea being a totalitarian regime. The government’s censorship on social issues, right down to a citizen speaking out and letting their opinion be known. Though the families are scared of the possibility of retaliation. So I can see why the subjects did the best they could. Poverty prevented them from doing so much. One thing, in the book I discovered was “North Korea was known as byzantine system of social controls” (Demick, 2009). I also found out that “North Korea was 13th in economic power” (Demick, 2009).So much brainwashing occurred that the people in the book even believed that North Korea was a good place, even, with everything that went on. North Korea being communist equal restrictions. The governments being unsuccessful in healthcare provision, educational system. Reviewing this information just showed that censorship is a key component to savaging any good to a country. Reading this book created so many opportunities for research questions and reflection on one of the readings we did in class that reflected part of this book. One good research question could be, how did communist during the 1950’s contribute to the