Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

by Barbara Demick

North Korea doesn’t look quite as incongruous in a world where strongmen—in China, Russia, Hungary, the Philippines, and Myanmar, to name a few—rule unchecked by the traditional bulwarks of democracy. Despotism is back in fashion. Those of us who hoped North Korea would become more like the rest of the world are dismayed that the rest of the world has become more like North Korea.