1. ISBN13: 9781857333657
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
4. Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Editorial Review :

Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include


* customs, values, and traditions
* historical, religious, and political background
* life at home
* leisure, social, and cultural life
* eating and drinking
* do's, don'ts, and taboos
* business practices
* communication, spoken and unspoken


"Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel

"... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel

"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer

"...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine

"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times

Customer Review :

good and useful

This books talks a little bit about korean history at the begining, and then it talks about traditions and things to do/not to do in Korea. I really enjoyed reading it.

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Handy!

This little book has helped me prepare to move to Korea. It is pocket-sized and easy to whip out while waiting in the passport line at the post office (haha). The author tried to balance information between the 2 Koreas, and you definitely get the feeling that he knows what he is talking about.

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Korea! Culture Smart

Daughter headed to Korea for a year and I purchased this book for her. Small and concise and full of great information on customs, traditions, do's and don't's for those unfamiliar with the Korean culture. Very informative yet small enough to tote aound and read whenever there were a few minutes. This book would be most helpful to anyone traveling to Korea and wanting to be sure to behave properly and not be offensive simply by doing whatever is done in the United States.

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An excellent travel guide

We acquired two DVDs and this pocket book in support of a young man deployed and stationed in South Korea.

Upon learning that Michael would be soon leaving us to travel to this beautiful country, we decided to acquire these items to learn where he would be spending the next year of his life.

We are glad to have shared this experience, we learned much about the country, its people, folkloric dance, foods and religion.

If you plan to travel to South Korea and want to arrive with a pocket book in hand that supports your awareness or if you simply want to learn about this country, then this is an excellent choice.

Culture Smart will provide information as to life in South Korea, manners, costumes, religious beliefs, and those little issues that could help you manage your relationships abroad.


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Korea

This is a very informative book outling the customs and etiquette of Korea. A nice short and to the point book for those who are traveling and want to know the basics.

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Editorial Review :

All but closed to outside visitors and influence, its public posture guarded and combative, we see almost nothing from inside North Korea. Award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has had rare access to this reclusive country, traveling within its borders as well as documenting life along its northern border with China and the highly militarized DMZ dividing North and South Korea. His images are amazing: the monumental architecture and empty streets of the capital; tightly controlled zones of economic and tourist trade with South Korea; mass games featuring 100,000 choreographed participants. Short essays, extended captions, and a foreword by North Korea expert Bruce Cumings further illuminate a country increasingly at the center of international politics.

Customer Review :

Perfect for any collection seeking a solid introduction.

North Korea's always in the news and so a book like INSIDE NORTH KOREA is essential not just to college-level holdings with books on North Korea, but to general-interest collections as well. The public library will especially appreciate this book's format: an oversized photo exhibit which pairs well-researched essays and commentary by North Korea experts with images of North Korean peoples and places. Perfect for any collection seeking a solid introduction.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

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A Great Coffee Table Picture Book by a Skilled Photographer in a Reclusive Country

When I purchased this book, I envisioned a narrative of life in North Korea, however, I quickly discovered this book WAS NOT what I had expected. Pleasantly surprised, I opened the book to see dozens of high-resolution photographs of North Korean cultural sites, monuments, Pyongyang, the DMZ, towns and farms, and Koreans. It shocked me to see these photographs, which were no-doubt screened before leaving the country, of a reclusive nation with a rich historical background.

The book is large, full of photographs, and sparse on narrative. The photographer teamed with noted American author and Korean Historian Bruce Cumings for the forward.

Photographs include: Mass Games, Pyongyang, The Monument to the Workers' Party, the Juche Tower, trolleys and subways, the Mansudae Grand Monument on Mansu Hill, the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, Arch of Triumph, the Reunification Arch, the DMZ, murals, soldiers in uniform, children, farmers, and small towns.



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A propaganda paradise

I recently reviewed Philippe Chancel's excellent photographic book North Korea and Mark Harris in his book has filled in more of the jigsaw. The Chancel book essentially covered the capitol Pyongyang and Harris contributes twenty general shots, too. Additional capitol coverage includes the amazing Arirang Mass Games, the Children's Palace, the Korean film studio and five shots of the USS Pueblo.

The strength of this book is the coverage outside of the capitol. No doubt under strict supervision Harris visited Kaesong, Geumgangsen, Sinuiju, Paektusan and the Tumen River along the northeast border region. The photos show the countryside and rather bleak looking cities and towns. Everywhere bikes seem the principal means of transport and everywhere there are the slogans of good cheer to inspire the masses. On page 135 there is photo of a hillside above the town of Sanbong with huge letters spelling out: 'Bravo Mr Kim who is the Greatest Sunshine of the 21st Century!' No doubt it keeps hillside typographers busy.

The last section covers the countryside along the Demilitarised Zone with its two and a half mile wide strip of land 151 miles long. The photos here are a mixture of military presence and agricultural folk existing (on either side) in this volatile flashpoint. One photo shows the world's tallest flagpole, 525 feet high, towering above the village of Kichong-dong (wouldn't such a structure make a super espionage something or other?).

I liked the book with its mixture of travel and politics (SS Pueblo, DMZ and Panmunjeom) presented in slightly raw, gutsy photos whereas Chancel's style is photographically softer and his book is the more elegant of the two. Both books are certainly worth a look if you want see a little bit of a forbidden country and you'll most likely see more of it than many of the people who live there.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.



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Excellent introduction to a brutal regime

Five stars is for the book; that is, the text and photographs. North Korea is a brutal totalitarian regime led by a self-indulgent buffoon who would rather starve his own people than sacrifice an iota of power and personal luxury.

This having been said, the book is incredible. North Korea is more inaccessible than Antarctica for the average traveller, but Mark Edward Harris wangled permission to do a photo-documentary of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Insanely extravagant performances with hundreds of players, statues of dead politicians towering over mere people, overwhelming buildings, deserted playgrounds and amusement parks all in the middle of strictly regimented life and incessant propaganda. What passes for art is non-stop hammerblows of the praise of the leader and fear and hatred of the outside world. The people of North Korea show fear and curiosity in equal parts. This is George Orwell's 1984 given life.

The photographs and text capture this and communicate it eloquently, and the photographer's skill is undeniable. Working under bizarre conditions, with little color save that in state managed propaganda art, he still finds compositions that make the humanity of the people he met visible despite the regime's efforts to stamp it out.

The five stars is a tribute to the artist behind this, even when the final work is beautiful in a morbidly facinating way.

E. M. Van Court

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Editorial Review :

This two-sided map of North Korea and South Korea explores the historical and ongoing political challenges of this region. One side displays a detailed political map and inset maps on population, economy, and armaments. The reverse side features pictures and maps of the Korean War, as well as a colorful relief map that reveals the rugged physical geography of the Korean peninsula. New place-names introduced by the South Korean government are shown--changing places such as Pusan to Busan and Cheju to Jeju.

Scale: 1:1,357,000. 23 x 36 inches (approx).

Customer Review :

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Editorial Review :

This book explores North Korea’s past and present as reflected by its showcase capital, Pyongyang. With photos and site-by-site descriptions, this nearly inaccessible place is revealed in unprecedented detail. (Hidden sites are also exposed, from the district for Party officials to prisons for dissidents.) In the process, the book illuminates dark corners of North Korean history.

Customer Review :

An outsider in Pyongyang

Tourists in Pyongyang have always had difficulties in interpreting what they are seeing and what they are perhaps missing. The ever present guides will of course talk a lot but they are carefully briefed and never say anything off the record. An unofficial introduction to the town is therefore long overdue and now we finally have one. More work probably went into this book than into many twice or three times its size on other places given the tough environment in which the author worked.

The author had to work carefully and discretely whilst in the town itself. He had to play detective rather than tourist and continue his research abroad where former residents of Pyongyang could talk freely to him. As he admits, there are still gaps to fill, but few visitors will have the skill and patience to match his work. For those who will never have the chance to visit Pyongyang, the book is still worth buying as an introduction to North Korean politics. All those who have made their mark there, whether recognised or not by the current regime, are remembered and described.

The book is as unusual as its subject; both deserve eachother.

Neil Taylor

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Pyongyang's Hidden History: must-read book for travelers and scholars

"Pyongyang: The Hidden History of the North Korean Capital" is another of those recently-issued books which provide a wealth of otherwise hard-to-find information about the secretive state that is North Korea. As is the case with Robert Willoughby's "North Korea: The Bradt Travel Guide" and Jane Portal's "Art Under Control in North Korea," Springer's volume is based on first-hand observations and hard data that should rivet the attention of both the casual traveler and the serious scholar.

Springer's book, in contrast to Willoughby's, is not a classic travel guide, and this is not the book to rely on if you need the basics about gaining access to North Korea, ensuring safe travel there, arranging tours, and choosing accommodations. With less text and a narrower focus, it also covers less of North Korea's history and less of its territory. However, Springer's "Hidden History" does a more thorough job of exploring Pyongyang, documenting the history of key buildings and sites in the city, and relating political trends and events to those buildings and sites. This issue of how physical structures and city layouts reflect political priorities is of critical importance to students of North Korean history and Kim Chong-il's leadership, and no better examination of this interplay is available.

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A fascinating book

If North Korea ever implodes the way East Germany did or if we ever have to go in and liberate the DPRK once the dictator Kim Jong-il dies, then this is the book you need to have on your person when the M1s roll into Pyongyang. The book is well-illustrated, discusses the significance of most of the monuments and edifices you can see in the city and overall is well-written. The very nature of Pyongyang's contruction reflects on the totalitarian Communist regime which squandered resources in a country where people are literally starving.

Here's to seeing the U.S. Army in Pyongyang for a SECOND time.

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One of the most inaccessible capitals in the world

Maps and beautiful color photographs enhance the informative text of Pyongyang: The Hidden History Of The North Korean Capital by Chris Springer. Pyongyang showcases a series of site-by-site descriptions of one of the most inaccessible capitals in the world. Well researched commentary provides truthful insights behind official history and propaganda, ranging from the Korean War down to the present day. A informational prize for armchair travelers, and a highly recommended introductory familiarization guide for anyone journeying to North Korea, Pyongyang is an enthusiastically recommended addition to personal and community library collections.

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informative introduction to North Korea through its capital

This is a remarkably well-written book works on both the level of a pictorial city guide and as political geography. The North Korean capital of Pyongyang was effectively flattened during the Korean War (1950-53) and its rebuilding reflected a series of political choices from what sorts of activities to locate in the capital to what kind of architectural design, materials, and construction techniques to employ. Springer mines this intersection of cityscape and political history beautifully, and it is hard to imagine anyone who would not learn something new from reading this book.

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1. ISBN13: 9781841622194
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
4. Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Editorial Review :

Customer Review :

Blimey

It's a fascinating book and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone seeking to get a hold on the North Korean regime's mindset. It also amply shows the current situation to be far more complex and historically rooted than our politicians and media suggest in their 'they're just evil' mantra.

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August 2005 Trip to DPRK

I found the Bradt travel guide indispensable. I traveled to the DPRK in August 2005. I am a U.S. citizen. The trip was arranged through the National Lawyers Guild. I and another lawyer from the US represented the NLG at the 60th Anniversary Liberation Day events in Pyongyang. The trip was routed through China. I believe the NLG picked me because I have good contacts in China and I speak Chinese.

As a result of the 1945 Teheran Conference, the Soviet Union agreed to enter the war against Japan. VE day was May 8, 1945. It took several months to move sufficient Red Army forces from Berlin to the Manchurian border. Chiang Kai Shek's nationalist army never really fought the Japanese, so the whole Northeast (except for the rural base areas of the Chinese Communist guerillas) was under Japanese occupation. The US was counting on Soviet help to rout the Japanese in Manchuria and Korea, and then help with the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. The U.S. got its wish. Two days after the August 6, 1945 Hiroshima bombing, Soviet forces smashed across the Manchurian border and liberated all of Korea and north China in less than a week. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. In both Koreas, August 15 (VJ Day) is Liberation Day. In the face of U.S. demands, the Soviets agreed to withdraw north to the 38th parallel. U.S forces then entered the south. That's how the division of Korea into two hostile states began.

The trip I was on was for a conference in Pyongyang celebrating the victory over Japan and pledging international support for Korean unification and support for North Korea against the threats made by the U.S. Government.

There were about 100 delegates from around the world. We all stayed in Pyongyang at the Yanggakdo Hotel on Yanggak Island in the Taedong river. The hotel was full. In addition to the conference people, there were hundreds of rowdy Chinese tourists from Beijing tour groups. Room prices are posted on an electronic sign in the lobby. All prices are in Euros. Third class rooms were 70, 80 and 95 Euros/day. 2nd class were 140, 150, 160 and 170/day. First class was 170 and 180. Deluxe rooms were 370 and 420. I picked the 80 Euro room, guessing that it would be higher and have a better view. I guessed correctly. I was assigned room 34-2. My large, new, air-conditioned room had a refrigerator/freezer, big bathroom and a great view, facing upriver toward the Juche Tower. Room prices included all meals, which were scheduled around our itinerary. I was not told that meals were free. When I paid my bill (for seven days), I was charged only 420 Euros for my room, food, conference registration and transportation. The guide/minder sought a "donation" for the minders. I donated 80 Euros. So, the cost for everything, including the tip, was 500 Euros for the week. If you have a choice, avoid this isolated hotel and try to get into the Koryo, which is downtown and near the postage stamp store and a department store. You will have little contact with ordinary Koreans if you stay at the Yanggakdo Hotel.

I got my visa in China, in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. Shenyang is the site of the DPRK Consulate nearest the DPRK border. No one was allowed into the DPRK Consulate. It looked like an impressive two story colonial building. A burley Korean was standing at a small opening in the gate and collecting stacks of Chinese passports for visas to Pyongyang. I told him, in Chinese, that we were there to pickup our visas. But he did not speak Chinese! He waived us away when he saw my American passport. A tour operator who spoke Korean interceded for us. The official eventually took our two passports and told us to return in an hour. When we came back, the burley official smiled and returned our passports. They had DPRK visas stapled inside. We next went to the DPRK airline company (Koryo) in a hotel in Shenyang. The clerk spoke Chinese. I told him we had visas and showed him our U.S. passports. As soon as he saw the passports he said, "No ticket, no way!" But I told him we already had a reservation. He checked his reservations computer and found our names. He then agreed to give us round trip tickets. The fare was $150.00, round trip, Shenyang to Pyongyang. We left the next day, August 10. It was a forty minute flight to Pyongyang. For me, the high point of the trip was the drive from the airport to the city. It's a 30 minute ride through rolling green countryside. There were cars, trucks and bicycles on the wide road. There were hundreds of busy peasants walking along the roadside carrying tools and leading water buffalo. They looked poor, but no worse than the peasants I saw in rural China, in Sichuan, on this same trip. Some of the peasants were smoking, so they must have had some disposable income. Rolling through the gradual hills I suddenly saw the monumental Arc de Triumph on the road ahead. Through the arch I could see the monument to Cholinga, the flying horse, and then huge revolutionary tablets capped with red flags. These were like the monuments around Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but they were on a much larger scale and very impressive. No city in the world has monuments on the scale of Pyongyang. Wow!


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a gem of a book on north korea

Robert Willoughby's travel guide to North Korea is fascinating on two counts. In the first instance, on the travel front itself, the author has covered several far-flung corners of the country, going beyond the more accessible capital city of P'yongyang, the Diamond Mountain resort, and the tourist-oriented luxuries of Mount Myohang. Although it is not always clear how Willoughby--or those others who contributed to his book--won permission to visit these remote locations, the guide book is explicit in pointing out that few if any foreigners are free to roam the country at will. Visits must generally be part of package tours, most of which originate in China, and the severely underdeveloped road and public transportation systems limit the number of cities that can be accessed.

On the second front, that of a descriptive journal, Willoughby's guide contributes to the outside world's knowledge of North Korea, the most secretive and hermetically-sealed of all nations on earth. Nearly all daily news reporting in the United States focuses on a North Korea that is obsessed with acquiring nuclear weapons and has clearly earned its place in the "axis of evil." It is therefore a delight to be offered detailed descriptions of the country's geographic features and flora and fauna and to find out how ordinary people go about their everyday lives. It is also a welcome surprise to learn that in some areas, such as Mount Paektu on the northwest border with China, North Koreans are both gracious and relaxed in dealing with visitors.

Willoughby's book benefits greatly from his wonderful writing skills, his British sense of humor, and the careful background research he used to flesh out first-hand observations. I found many details in this book fascinating and available for the very first time, and I would have loved to have had the guide available while I was still an intelligence officer following North Korea in the 1970s through 1990s.

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A travel guide to the last Stalinist country

No, I haven't been to North Korea, but who has? This was a quirky and fun book for an armchair traveller. The Bradt travel series prides itself on going where Lonely Planet fears to tread - places like Iraq and Kabul - as well as the world's most bizarre country, North Korea. The author briefly mentions how difficult it was to write a travel book where museum employees refuse to give opening hours or phone numbers of their establishments, and where special permits are required to travel from one city to another. I suspect the author could write a second book about what he went through to write this book.

Part I consists of 91 pages of background (history, politics, entry documents, etc.), and Part II is about 120 pages of typical travel information regarding hotels (not that you have any choice), restaurants, shopping (hahaha), attractions, and so on. There are 22 color photos, 27 maps, and some black and white drawings. A brief language guide gives translations of such useful phrases as "Yankees are wolves in human shape" - the author does have a sense of humor - as well as more commonplace words and phrases. There is almost nothing here about atrocities or the dire poverty that others have noted. However, the author does coyly mention that it would be pointless to write his book in such a manner that it was banned from being brought into North Korea.

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Hints for US citizens?

I actually did travel to North Korea, through the Korean Friendship Association. This is about the only way non NGO Americans can make their way into the Hermit Kingdom. I am wondering if this book gives Americans any advice as to how to get into the country. I would love to see past the major showcase cities we were allowed to tour. Nowadays you have to be prepared to 'Praise the Leader" everyday if you want to take the KFA trip. Not a good idea for those Americans who would ever like to visit South Korea or fly on an airplane. I bet the CIA has your picture before you even land in Pyongyang...
Alas, I heard you could use those passports the were issuing in Key West as a novelty item. Apparently they look so good, all you have to do is hide your accent and pay up at the DPRK embassy in Beijing and your on your way to Pyongyang.... I don't know if I would feel for you if you get caught though. haha
Sucks to be a cracker sometimes

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