Fyodor Tertitskiy, "Pyongyang on the Brink: Sixteen Crises That Shaped North Korea" (Hurst, 2026)

Asian Review of Books · May 14, 2026 · 32m

North Korea has survived wars, sanctions, and isolation—to the point where it now seems that the continuation of the Kim dynasty, and a starkly divided Korea, is assured. But history is filled with events where some change might have drastically altered how a country’s development might have gone.

North Korea is no different, at least according to Fyodor Tertitskiy, author of Pyongyang on the Brink: Sixteen Crises That Shaped North Korea (Hurst, 2026). In his book, he posits sixteen different points where things might have gone differently. Maybe Japan falls too quickly in the Second World…