Korea And The World

During the 1990s, North Korea suffered one of the worst famines of the 20th century. The result of this “Arduous March,” as the regime calls it, was not only a humanitarian catastrophe: the large-scale suffering also ignited economic and social changes that are still shaping the country today. This is the analysis of James Pearson and Daniel Tudor, who argue in their latest book, "North Korea Confidential", that this experience, although highly traumatic, helped sow the seeds of capitalism in North Korea. In North Korea Confidential, Tudor and Pearson depict a changing society, communist by outside perception only , where the poor now almost exclusively survive thanks to the little businesses they maintain to complement their almost worthless official wages. Pyongyang is the seat of a new economic elite that conducts trade with China and beyond. Foreign currencies have taken over in some parts of the country as the primary medium of exchange, and consumerism seems almost celebrated as a virtue - the winners o