Forever President - by Michael J Seth (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The life story of enigmatic North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, grandfather to Kim Jong Un.

Kim Il Sung (1912-94) ruled his country, North Korea, for longer and shaped it more profoundly than almost any other modern leader. He created a unique and seemingly bizarre and menacing political and social system, establishing a dynasty that has maintained it for two more generations. Yet he remains a curiously inaccessible, little-understood person, partly due to the closed and secretive nature of the state he founded. Historian Michael J. Seth puts together what we know of Kim's life from all available sources and places it in the context of Korean and modern world history to make both Kim and North Korea comprehensible. Forever President looks at the unusual circumstances that contributed to Kim's rise to power and the early experiences that help to explain the directions he took his country. It examines his impressive early achievements and his later failures, which left North Korea the isolated, impoverished half of a divided nation. Kim, it finds, was a charismatic and resourceful leader determined to reunify and modernize his country. But he pursued these aims with ruthlessness, egotism, and extreme narrow-mindedness. Ultimately, his political inflexibility led to disaster.

Review Quotes

"A fascinating look into the man that founded and transformed North Korea into an ultra-militaristic and highly repressive state."--Benjamin R. Young, author of "Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader"

"Much of Kim Il Sung's life 'remains a mystery' says Seth. So does his death, aged 82, in 1994. For half a century the North Korean dictator confounded international opinion and the geopolitical odds to father a nation and found a dynasty. Having comfortably outlived mentors like Stalin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh, officially he yet lives as the state's 'Forever President.' Seth's necessarily political biography is judicious, authoritative, and unexpectedly readable."--John Keay

"Seth traces the life of North Korea's famous leader from the Japanese colonial period to his final days. This concise and highly readable volume avoids excessive moralizing while helping readers to understand how Kim Il Sung gained and retained power. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Kim Dynasty and how North Korea became the totalitarian state that it is today."--Gregg A Brazinsky, professor of history and international affairs, George Washington University

About the Author

Michael J. Seth is professor of history at James Madison University. Among his many books are Korea: A Very Short Introduction and Korea at War.