"In The Impossible State, seasoned international-policy expert and lauded scholar Victor Cha pulls back the curtain on provocative, isolationist North Korea, providing our best look yet at its history and the rise of the Kim family dynasty and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them. Cha illuminates the repressive regime's complex economy and culture, its appalling record of human rights abuses, and its belligerent relationship with the...

"North Korea remains a puzzle to Americans. Seen primarily through images of its eccentric leaders and goose-stepping soldiers, it makes the front pages when it test launches its missiles or conducts a nuclear test as it did with two spectacular successes in the latter part of 2017. It is difficult for the general reader to assess the real danger North Korea and its current enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Un, pose. Does he have a nuclear button that could...