Accidental Tyrant: The Life of Kim Il-sung

Kim Il-sung was the enigmatic architect of North Korea. His life is an extraordinary tale of improbable success: once a barely educated guerrilla fighter, he rose to lead the nation at the young age of 33. Against all odds, he established a horrifyingly stable dictatorial regime, one that still struggles to provide for its people, yet could obliterate Hollywood, Silicon Valley and much of East Asia in nuclear strikes.

Based on extensive new sources in Korean, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, F...