Moe Taylor. North Korea, Tricontinentalism, and the Latin American Revolution, 1959–1970. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2023. xiii, 227 pp. £85.00 (E-book: $110.00.)
Year: 2025
Type: book-review
Abstract: The history of North Korea has predominantly been studied within the context of its passive, isolated, and self-preserving character, largely attributed to the economic, military, and diplomatic challenges stemming from the Korean War and Sino-Soviet conflicts.However, as B.K. Gills noted, there is a consensus in academia that North Korea experienced its most diplomatically successful period during the 1960s and 1970s. 1 This raises a pertinent question: can one accurately understand North Korea's diplomatic zenith through the lens of these, often seemingly contradictory, perspectives?Moe Taylor's research makes a significant academic contribution by reorienting our understanding of North Korean diplomacy.He highlights bilateral relations between North Korea and Latin America -an area previously marked by a scholarly vacuumby transforming the concept of independence, traditionally utilized to explain the diplomacy of weaker nations, into a multifaceted, open, and collective survival concept that revalidates their diplomatic legitimacy.Taylor's work recalls the achievements of Suh Dae-sook, a former director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii, who helped to mitigate the "Kim Il-sung Myth" and enabled more profound research on North Korea.Moreover, the relationship between North Korea and Cuba has often been analysed as a comparative case of reform and opening in the context of the collapse of socialist systems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.However, the academic discourse has struggled to convincingly articulate why North Korea and Cuba should be compared, relying on unexamined entities.Taylor's research restores the neglected diplomatic history between North Korea and Cuba, providing insights into why Cuba's reform and opening model was significant to North Korea due to their prior close alliance.Each historical fact presented in Taylor's research is novel.He asserts that North Korea's revolutionary strategy and economic development models profoundly influenced Latin American countries, including Cuba, emphasizing the relationship between North Korea's anti-imperialism and the revolutions in Latin America.He points out the severe lack of transnational studies connecting Asia with Latin America and the Caribbean, arguing for the need to examine North Korea's prominent role in the Cold War and socialist movements in Latin America.Taylor also emphasizes Vietnam's role in the development of the bilateral relationship, contending that North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba formed a new informal bloc through their shared interests 1 B.K.
Author: Sangbum Kim
Institution: Kyungnam University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4412514175