Michael J. Seth offers a survey of North Korean history from its origins in the colonial period to the present, covering politics, foreign policy, ideology, economics, social change and everyday life. In this book, he argues that the goal of the North Korean regime was to create a truly sovereign, militarily strong, prosperous state that could restore Korea's place in the world as a modern progressive society, a goal that was shared by almost all Koreans on both sides of the DMZ, and that it differed from the South only in the path it chose to that end. The book examines how in pursuit of this goal the state gradually transformed itself from a Soviet-style socialist state to an ultra-nationalist, dynastic one, explaining the role of both the leadership and non-elites in shaping this evolution. Placing North Korea in a broad historical and comparative perspective, this is the only comprehensive general history of North Korea in English.