Infantalizing North Korea

Posted by on May 10, 2013 in Articles, Featured, Korea | 2 comments Political cartoonists love to portray North Korea as an irrational and infantile force. It’s either a baby with a nuclear rattle or a little truant in need of a timeout. The relative youth of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, encourages such representations, but the practice predates his ascension to power. According to the dictates of their profession, cartoonists must exaggerate to make...
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The Real North Korea

Posted by on Apr 21, 2013 in Articles, Book Reviews, Featured, Korea | 0 comments Any book that purports to tell the story of the “real North Korea” runs the risk of serious overhype. North Korea, after all, is perhaps the least understood, least accessible, and least research-friendly country in the world. It has been called an “intelligence black hole.” Journalists rarely visit, and when they do they can’t just interview anyone they please. Historians rarely visit,...
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Taking It to the Streets (in the GDR)

Posted by on Apr 11, 2013 in Articles, Blog, Eastern Europe, Europe, Featured, Russia and Eastern Europe | 0 comments The home movies show a bunch of young kids doing skateboard stunts all around their neighborhood. Without the sound, the action could be taking place almost anywhere. The kids have clothes and haircuts that look like the late 1970s, the town they live in has a prefab drabness. But their goofiness and exuberance is universal. Look a little closer and you’ll see that their skateboards are...
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The Paradoxes of the Pacific Pivot

Posted by on Apr 10, 2013 in Articles, Asia, Featured, Korea, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments The “Pacific pivot” of the United States is nothing new. At the same time, it doesn’t really exist. And yet, even though it doesn’t exist, this pivot is partly responsible for the escalation of tensions in and around the Korean peninsula. How can all three of these statements be simultaneously true? Such are the paradoxes of the U.S. shift in attention toward the Pacific Rim. The Obama...
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The Secret History of Yugoslavia

Posted by on Apr 5, 2013 in Articles, Blog, Book Reviews, Eastern Europe, Europe, Featured, Russia and Eastern Europe | 0 comments In the 6th century, in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, the historian Procopius penned an account of the misdeeds of the emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora. The Secret History is a compelling account of the court intrigues of a treacherous emperor in a crumbling empire. That Justinian enjoyed a high reputation, the result of the military victories of his brilliant general...
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You Don’t Know Squat

Posted by on Feb 22, 2013 in Articles, Blog, Eastern Europe, Europe, Featured, Russia and Eastern Europe, Uncategorized | 2 comments It was breathtaking. We emerged from the forest on the outskirts of Moscow and saw, looming above the tall grass, an enormous ruined palace. It was 1985, and I was studying Russian at the Pushkin Institute. We heard a rumor about a grand edifice, the unfinished palace of Catherine the Great, that was moldering not far from where we were staying in Moscow. We took the subway to the end of the...
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