On My Nightstand: Nothing to Envy

I have often written that North Korea is little more than a gulag archipelago that puts the North Korean people at the mercy of a totalitarian regime that cares nothing about its people and only about its survival.

North Koreans have been fed a steady stream of propaganda for decades about the evils of the US, South Koreans, and capitalism. All the while, the industrial capability and technologies of North Korea fell decades behind their counterparts across the DMZ.

Then, things got worse. The country began to starve as crops failed and the government couldn't provide. Wages stopped being paid. Children died of malnourishment. Millions perished. Millions more were tossed into prison camps. They had nothing. They have nothing still.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick tells the tale of a group of North Koreans who managed to escape a living hell behind the DMZ.