From a seasoned advisor, “a meaty, fast-paced portrait of North Korean society, economy, politics and foreign policy” (Foreign Affairs).

In The Impossible State, international-policy expert and former Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council Victor Cha pulls back the curtain on this controversial and isolated country, providing the best look yet at North Korea’s history, the rise of the Kim family dynasty, and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them. He illuminates the repressive regime's complex economy and culture, its appalling record of human-rights abuses, and its belligerent relationship with the United States, and analyzes the regime’s major security issues—from the seemingly endless war with its southern neighbor to its frightening nuclear ambitions—all in light of the destabilizing effects of Kim Jong-il's death and the pivotal and disquieting transition of power from tyrannical father to inexperienced son.

How this enigmatic nation-state—one that regularly violates its own citizens’ inalienable rights and has suffered famine, global economic sanctions, a collapsed economy, and near total isolation from the rest of the world—has continued to survive has long been a question that preoccupies the West. Cha reveals a land of contradictions, and delves into the ideology that leads an oppressed, starving populace to cling so fiercely to its failed leadership.

With rare personal anecdotes from the author’s time in Pyongyang and his tenure as an adviser in the White House, this authoritative, accessible, “engrossing” history (The Economist) offers much-needed understanding of the country’s veiled past and uncertain future.

“An up-close, insightful portrait.” —The Washington Post

“An eye-opening view of the closed, repressive dictatorship of North Korea. . . . A useful, pertinent work for understanding the human story behind the headlines.” —Kirkus Reviews