| International Standard Book Number |
9781524733506 (electronic book)
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| International Standard Book Number |
9781524733490 (hardcover)
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| International Standard Book Number |
1524733490 (hardcover)
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| Personal Name |
Cheng, Jonathan, author.
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| Title Statement |
Korean messiah : Kim Il Sung and the Christian roots of North Korea's personality cult / Jonathan Cheng.
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| Edition Statement |
First hardcover edition.
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| Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice |
New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf, 2026.
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| Physical Description |
viii, 745 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 25 cm.
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| General Note |
"A Borzoi Book" -- title page verso.
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 559-704) and index.
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| Formatted Contents Note |
Prologue: An unexpected invitation -- Act I: The Jerusalem of the East -- Farewell to Madison -- Hermit kingdom -- Arrival -- The untamed Northwest -- The destruction of Pyongyang -- A new hope -- A new threat -- A church rises -- Act II: The bible-woman's son -- A prayer for Korea -- A Christian home -- Render unto Caesar -- Revolutionary days -- Wilsonian ideals -- Mansei -- Specter of socialism -- An education -- Ch'angdok days -- A father's legacy -- The Sunday school teacher -- Divine intervention -- Shinto shrines -- Act III: The sun of the nation -- A speech in Pyongyang -- A scramble for Korea -- A Moses-like leader for Korea -- A collision course -- Pastor versus church -- A church loyal to the leader -- A permanent division -- De-Stalinization -- A cult is born -- Rival faiths -- A cult without parallel -- Spreading the gospel of Kim -- Faith of a child -- Epilogue: Immortality.
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| Summary, Etc. |
"A landmark history of North Korea, told through the rise of the Kim Dynasty and its surprising ties to American Christianity--a spectacular, penetrating account of a world like no other. North Korea. The Hermit Kingdom. For eight decades, it has marched defiantly to its own beat, shaking off its Soviet and Chinese sponsors to emerge as one of the world's most enigmatic nations-a nuclear-armed state ruled by a dictatorial dynasty unlike any the world has seen. Underpinning the state is a personality cult larger and more soaked in religiosity than those constructed by Stalin or Mao-one that, unbeknownst to the world, traces its roots back to the Christian fervor of post-Civil War America. In Korean Messiah, Jonathan Cheng, the Wall Street Journal's China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, takes us deep inside Pyongyang, a city once so dominated by Christianity it was known as "the Jerusalem of the East." Cheng introduces us to Samuel Moffett, a Presbyterian missionary from Madison, Indiana who would venture into Pyongyang at the turn of the nineteenth century and build a remarkable following-one that would include the very Kim family that today presides over one of the world's harshest persecutors of the Christian faith. At the center of this story-its messiah-is North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, son of two fervent Christians and progenitor of an ideology known as Kimilsungism, an exercise in idolatry that has elevated him, and his successor son and grandson, to Christ-like status, from the humble manger where he was born to the subway seat on which the venerated leader once placed his posterior, cordoned off as if it were a religious relic. Drawing on letters, diaries, and never-before-unearthed archival material that temper and oftentimes contradict the glorious historical record promoted by Kim Il Sung's legions of hagiographers, Korean Messiah tells the true story of a country shrouded in fictions"-- Provided by publisher.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Moffett, Samuel H. Influence.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Kim, Il-song, 1912-1994 Cult.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Political leadership Korea (North)
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Personality Political aspects Korea (North)
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Heads of state Korea (North) Biography.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Missions, American History 20th century. Korea (North)
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Presbyterian Church History. Korea (North)
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| Subject Added Entry - Geographical Term |
Korea (North) Politics and government.
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| Index Term-Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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