NORTH KOREA ON THE BRINK: Struggle for Survival, by Glyn Ford with Soyoung Kwon. London: Pluto Press, 2008, 249 pp., £18.99 (cloth)
The election of Lee Myung Bak as president of South Korea has led to heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula because he links further humanitarian aid and investment in North Korea with progress on human rights and denuclearization. President Lee's shift away from the "sunshine policy" of his two predecessors — emphasizing constructive engagement/appeasement depending on one's perspective — was greeted with missile tests from the North.
South of the border, this provocative gesture is widely interpreted as an effort to "educate" the new president in the realities of leadership on the Peninsula.