North Korea is widely regarded as one of the most repressive and dangerous nations in the world - the last Stalinist regime on earth. Yet despite its manifest importance - particularly its potential for destabilizing East Asia - North Korea is notoriously one of the most difficult regimes inthe world to study. A black box to most, the regime appears to be fundamentally irrational and unstable. How can it survive? In A Country, Not a Bomb, Andrei Lankov draws from years of research and his own access to North Koreans to provide a genuinely informed and accessible overview of NorthKorea, from its origins in 1945 to the present. Given its confrontational foreign policy, its nuclear ambitions, and its paranoid leadership cadre, this incredibly poor nation has remained on the front pages ever since the end of the Cold War. Lankov, who is fluent in both Korean and English, will explain how the regime actually functions and why it has achieved a modicum of stability despite its bizarre mix of Stalinist totalitarianism and hereditary monarchy. Along with covering North Korea's foreign and nuclear policies, the book willalso explain how its ruling class actually rules and how ordinary North Koreans live. Perhaps most surprisingly, a grass roots market society is emerging, and Lankov traces how this has happened. Lankov has conducted many interviews with North Korean emigres, so his understanding of both the regimeand life under it is remarkably well informed. It will be the definitive account. | The Real North Korea by Andrei Lankov, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters