Engrossing... It offers perhaps the best recent one-volume account of North Korea’s history, economics and foreign relations
The Economist
[This] excellent, comprehensive book explains as much as it is possible to explain the nature of this ‘impossible state’, how it has developed under the Kim dynasty and why it endures as a major thorn in the side of the global community
Jonathan Fenby
The Times
This scrupulously researched account provides an alarming insight into how a long-running nightmare for North Koreans could soon become a geopolitical crisis for the rest of us
Stephen Robinson
Sunday Times
He uses his first-hand and often surreal experiences of dealing with North Korean officialdom to telling effect in the book. But Cha is also a scholar of Korean and Asian affairs, so can take a historical view of the North Korean problem and set it in its wider international context… [An] impressive analysis
Richard Cockett
Literary Review
Provocative, frightening, and never more relevant than today as an untested new leader takes charge of the world’s most unpredictable nuclear power
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent A powerful portrait of one of the world’s most troubled and troublesome countries [and] a fascinating, behind-the-scenes account of recent American foreign policy by a leading official. . . . A must-read combination for anybody interested in Korea, east Asia, or global security more generally
Gideon Rose, Editor, Foreign Affairs Cha demonstrates an intimate familiarity with the regime’s contradictions... The thesis is clear: the world’s most closed-off state needs to open up to survive, but breaking its hermetic seal may well precipitate its demise
The New Yorker
An up-close, insightful portrait... The Impossible State is a clearheaded, bold examination of North Korea and its future
Washington Post
This is a useful book on how much of the outside world sees North Korea, and what North Korea sees of the outside world
Good Book Guide