The Impossible State

The definitive account of North Korea - its veiled past and uncertain future - from former White House adviser and Korea expert Victor Cha

‘We killed Americans.

We are killing Americans.

We will kill Americans.’

North Korean schoolchildren conjugating verbs

How did North Korea become The Impossible State, where citizens found humming South Korean pop songs risk being sent to a gulag, and yet a starving populace clings fiercely to its Dear Leader Kim Jong-un? What does the future hold for a regime with terrifying nuclear ambitions and an endless war with its southern counterpart? Former White House adviser and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, Victor Cha, pulls back the curtain on the world’s most isolated country to provide this unprecedented and timely insight into North Korea’s history, present and future.

In the era of the Trump administration and with South Korean relations seemingly on the brink of great change, this authoritative account of the country interweaved with exclusive personal anecdotes offers much-needed answers in an increasingly uncertain political climate. Indeed, Cha warns of a future North Korea for which the Western world may be woefully unprepared. Extensive and fast-paced, The Impossible State is an extraordinarily edifying portrait of the society, economy and foreign policy of the most enigmatic nation-state.

‘Engrossing... It offers perhaps the best recent one-volume account of North Korea’s history, economics and foreign relations’ The Economist