Overview

The author read North Korean textbooks and Japanese textbooks used during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula and used primary sources, conducted interviews, and collaborated with experts to come to his conclusions. His primary thesis that the Kim regime would maintain power over North Korea proved correct. In addition, he explores how North Korea adopted strategies, including use of Japanese moral education to brainwash the populace into believing Kim Sung-il and his successors are more than political and military leaders, but religious/spiritual saviors. He explains how North Korean moral education holds the secrets to the Kim regimes ability to remain in power despite woeful, horrendous economic conditions and suffering faced by the North Korean people under a repressive regime.