Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

by Barbara Demick

The officers, one of whom was Dean Rusk, later to become secretary of state, wanted to keep the capital, Seoul, in the U.S. sector. So the two army officers looked for a convenient way to divide the peninsula. They slapped a line across the map at the 38th parallel. The line bore little relationship to anything in Korean history or geography.

Reminds me of the line dividing India and Pakistan