The best Asian History books: Reddit reviews

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There are several accounts of North Korean prison camps from defectors who escaped them. Here are some translated drawings from one such escapee.

You could also look up the book Escape From Camp 14 though the subject of the book has admitted that some of the details are not correct.

Basically, most of the personal accounts you'll find get lots of scrutiny for being sensationalized, but if you look at the commonalities of the accounts, life in there does not look "light" in any way, shape, or form.

Escape from Camp 14 is a great read; not only does it detail what life is like in the political prison and labor camps, but the struggles that North Koreans face after successfully defecting to the south.

"North Korea’s political prison camps have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. No one born and raised in these camps is known to have escaped. No one, that is, except Shin Dong-hyuk.

In Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state through the story of Shin’s shocking imprisonment and his astounding getaway. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence—he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother.

The late “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il was recognized throughout the world, but his country remains sealed as his third son and chosen heir, Kim Jong Eun, consolidates power. Few foreigners are allowed in, and few North Koreans are able to leave. North Korea is hungry, bankrupt, and armed with nuclear weapons. It is also a human rights catastrophe. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people work as slaves in its political prison camps. These camps are clearly visible in satellite photographs, yet North Korea’s government denies they exist.

Harden’s harrowing narrative exposes this hidden dystopia, focusing on an extraordinary young man who came of age inside the highest security prison in the highest security state. Escape from Camp 14 offers an unequalled inside account of one of the world’s darkest nations. It is a tale of endurance and courage, survival and hope."

It can also be extraordinarily depressing. But it is informative.

If any of you are curious about life in North Korea and the difficulty and danger in defecting, I'd highly recommend <em>Nothing to Envy</em>.

It contains the tales of a number of defectors, the reason they left, and how they escaped.

The one that always sticks in my head is the doctor who was starving to death in North Korea, but snuck across the border to China to steal food, and then planned to come back home. She was so brainwashed that even when starving to death, the thought of actually defecting was unimaginable to her. What ultimately broke her was when she found a bowl of rice and meat just sitting outside some Chinese home; she was completely dumbfounded because she hadn't had rice in years and couldn't understand why someone would literally leave such a bounty outside. She eventually realized what it was: table scraps for the family dog. Only once she realized that a dog in China ate better than a doctor in North Korea did she finally make the decision to defect.

Hell of a book, and some incredible stories.

There's actually a decent amount of Academia dedicated to figuring out how the Irish transitioned from identifiable ethnic minority to other white people. The most famous example is about how the Irish came to become oppressors, which is oF cOuRsE synonymous with white.

But the most profound way in which they became what was... they assimilated.

I mean, over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from that land, with over 500 villages razed to the ground, many of them completely massacred. It's not really a radical thing to want your land back.

Read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. Its quite an eye opener. Most Palestinians were actually ethnically cleansed before the war started, so saying its the arab countries fault is completely inaccurate. https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553

What the Buddha Taught is pretty good and often recommended.

>This comprehensive, compact, lucid, and faithful account of the Buddha’s teachings persistently enjoys great popularity in colleges, universities, and theological schools both here and abroad. “An exposition of Buddhism conceived in a resolutely modern spirit.”—from the Foreword.
>
>“For years,” says the Journal of the Buddhist Society, “the newcomer to Buddhism has lacked a simple and reliable introduction to the complexities of the subject. Dr. Rahula’s What the Buddha Taught fills the need as only could be done by one having a firm grasp of the vast material to be sifted. It is a model of what a book should be that is addressed first of all to ‘the educated and intelligent reader.’ Authoritative and clear, logical and sober, this study is as comprehensive as it is masterly.”
>
>A classic introductory book to Buddhism, What the Buddha Taught, contains a selection of illustrative texts from the original Pali texts, including the Suttas and the Dhammapada (specially translated by the author), sixteen illustrations, and a bibliography, glossary, and index.

The book <em>Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia</em> is a really excellent (if terrifying) look at the way that the media operated by Putin's authoritarian state has manipulated and brainwashed entire populations. And it was published a solid year before the 2016 election. It's a rough read but I think it's a book everyone in America should be familiar with.

you make it sound as if I personally take some EU funds. And you have a really condescending attitude. "You take our money, we helped you, so you must listen as we tell you". From my perspective (I am Czech), it was Germany and Russia who fucked my country up 80 years ago. One side Nazis killing slavic people because they were untermenschen, on the other side fucking USSR. If it were not for these two countries, communism would not have decimated eastern Europe. You need some history lessons

https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471

and nowadays we see history repeating itself. Gemany is no more nazistic and imperialistic, but it is spineless and enabling another fascist Regime, which is current Russia. Russia is again threatening other countries

Escape from Camp 14

Most days, I feel optimistic about the future of the country. It looks like Trump's stupidity and incompetence is going to be the undoing of his Post Office scam, and the country is turning against him.

Then I see that yet another QAnon qultist (and this time, a 9/11 denier!) won a GOP Primary for a red district, and is going to Congress in January.

Stupidity will be the death of this nation. We are headed to a future where Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible

This image gives sort of the essential idea of what has happened. I'd advise the book "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine" by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe to start understanding the history.

Let's not forget all the Soviet soldiers summarily executed or sent to die in gulags for "political crimes," like being captured by the enemy, or retreating to save their own lives, or writing in private letters about the hardships of Soviet army life.

If you want to follow that path even further, read this book.

It's a journey through how Putin creates exactly the feeling you're experiencing to control Russia, how the strategy developed over time, and what it's like to live in Russia once truth died.

The Irish weren't always considered white. I haven't read the whole thing, but this book, How the Irish Became White, is pretty interesting.

Thanks! Snyder is a great writer. Bloodlands is definitely worth the read -- it's a look at the mass killings under the Hitler and Stalin regimes. If that sounds like both-sides-ism or something, it's more like 'political mass murder' is itself the center of the story, often told from the point of view of its victims.

If someone came into your house and told you that their God told them that your house is now theirs, everyone in this sub would take up arms to protect themselves and their property. But since the conflict is targeted towards Muslims, everyone in this sub (and this political party) turns a blind eye.

What if it was Christian Palestinians? Who side would you be on? It’s irrelevant since Israel already killed all the Christians in Palestine in the 1940s......

If you want to educate yourself, here’s a book written by a former Israeli official, former Zionist about what happened in Palestine and Israel during the 1940s https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553

If you don’t believe that guy, you might believe the survivors of the USS Liberty, which was attacked by unmarked Israeli planes in 1967. They were threatened with death and treason charges to stay quiet on the matter until Lyndon Johnson died. Lyndon Johnson, during the incident, called off the reinforcements while the attack carried on for another 3 hours. But don’t worry, Israel apologized for killing 34 of our soldiers, saying it was an accident. https://www.amazon.com/Remember-Liberty-Almost-Sunk-Treason/dp/1634241088

Or just stay uninformed and blindly support your government, it’s your choice.

Because the whole country was taken away from them in a series of atrocities and evictions in the past 70 years.

Just imagine a house. If the house is yours and I slaughtered your family and evicted you. You would want the whole house back, not parts of it, right? Same thing with Palestine.

Hope that helps 🙃

If you wish to understand more about atrocities and evictions, then see https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1851685553/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_SEH1J4B822XQH1ZYMCJR

https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6206/620204.html

I'm just basically spamming this today, aren't I... Sigh

https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415963095

I'm actually just tired of this conversation with people. Every single person has an opinion about race and God damn near no one has ever read about it.

Gender doesn't exist, but sex does. Sex is not a social construct. One could argue that race is a social construct, see &quot;how the Irish became white&quot;.

Short and sweet: during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan we were sending a shitload of weapons to the Afghanis through Pakistan. The paki isi(their cia) pretty much gave everything to the taliban. The northern alliance got shit. The pakis (isi)and the talis pretty much teamed up wrg to weapons/training/etc. To top it off the feds were so impressed with the paki/tali religious dedication and a lot of our cash funded madrassas which in turn radicalized a shit ton of people which lead us into the situation we’re in now. It’s fucking absolutely nuts. If you want to read an amazing account of that whole ordeal I highly recommend “Ghost Wars”. And the follow up “Directorate S”

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=pd_sbs_3/142-7118718-8375569?pd_rd_w=tWSpS&amp;pf_rd_p=f8e24c42-8be0-4374-84aa-bb08fd897453&amp;pf_rd_r=WCCMAN2B0SM75C91BHHD&amp;pd_rd_r=de1bc839-0f75-4bae-8232-231...

We basically caused 9/11 the rise of the taliban, the shitshow going on now and pretty much every terrorist attack claimed by isis and a lot more. I can’t even find the words to describe how I felt after absorbing everything.

The audiobook is great and there’s so much crazy shit thst pops up your constantly like “WTF!!”

Yeah. And here’s some more! (That second one isn’t a source on it’s own, but has several citations)

This is also a blatant attempt to shift the conversation away from the original argument, how does Palestine’s laws justify Israeli human rights abuses!?

>There is also a tendency among the wealthy or "successful" in a minority community to believe they got their position on their merit (where merit has been decided by the shapers of the culture, in this case white people). This ignores the fact that to maintain their self-perception of superiority they will align themselves with the "dominant" forces against those they seem lesser.

True. See also: How the Irish Became White

>A doctor consistently performing hysterectomies on captive patients that are (illegitimately imo, but that's another discussion) wards of the state is terroristic

It's some Nazi-level shit

Indeed. For anyone unfamiliar with Russian domestic propaganda the book Nothing Is Real And Everything Is Possible is excellent. The Russian government has become very good at using conspiracy theories to manipulate their citizens and they are leveraging those expertise to influence other nations.

>First link, Arabs started the Nakba. Don’t blame us for a war consequences you started.

Jews started the anti Nazi boycotts. Dont blame Nazis for a war consequence you started.

And no, Arabs didn't start Nakba you liar. Nabka was planned decades before the 1948 "war".

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1851685553/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_HRFPHPDKJNRYSZGCTTR4

>Second link, it false, it wasn’t Palestine. It’s UK. Give me one name of Palestinian PM/President/King.

Mindless Jewish Nazi, I don't expect nothing more. Still indulging in slaughtering kids for your sadistic rituals?

Every person should read https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553 before choosing a side on this conflict. Majority of evangelical Christians are misinformed on the history of it. I admittedly was too for majority of my adult life.

If you want the state to create or enforce a monopoly, you aren't a Capitalist. Simply repeating "they are Capitalists!" does not make it true. These are the people who funded the Bolsheviks, does that make them Communists? They are 100% STATISTS.

https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Bolshevik-Revolution-Capitalists/dp/190557035X

They just used government to shutdown private business for a whole year while thier corporations consolidated customers. Many of those businesses will never come back. This is not Capitalism and Corporate Personhood does not exist without the State to grant special privileges while avoiding legal liability. Corporate status itself is a fiction created by the State.

Refusing a two-state solution by Israel at this stage and adopting the one-state means the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will get galloped by 'an ethnostate for Jews' and how would they handle a 6 million Arabs on their ethnostate? Read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé an ex-Israeli historian.

Communism the theory, and communism in real practice, are very very different. I base my idea of communism on what always happens in practice, as do most scholars and historians.

The defining work on the topic would be Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago

That's the condensed version, the full 3 volume version is even better. This is what living under communism is actually like, and an analysis as to why it is that way.

Since the USSR we still don't have a counter case where am attempt has caused anything but poverty and misery. Without freedom and a profit motive, society cannot function. Look also to the original settlers of America, who tried a form of socialism and almost all starved.

look at the amount of people in this picture... Russia allows and even controls protests like this as a pressure relief valve.

Everybody in Russia knows Putin is a corrupt supergarch...... check out the following book.
https://www.amazon.ca/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

Hey if you're still reading up on NK, might I suggest a book? Escape from Camp 14. It's a true story about a guy named Shin and how he managed to flee from NK camps. Here's his bio too.