This is a historically founded, empirical study of social and economic transformation wrought by 'marketisation from below' in North Korea.

Introduction: North Korea: politics, economy and society; Part I. Jettisoning Caricatures: Understanding History: 1. Beyond the clichés; 2. National identity; Part II. The Rise and Fall of Kim Il Sungism: 3. Colonial occupation and the rise of Kim Il Sung; 4. War-fighting as state-building; 5. 'Socialism in our own style'; 6. Sisyphus as economic model; 7. Social stratification in the workers' state; 8. Famine and the end of Kim Il Sungism; Part III. Marketisation and Military Rule: 9. Marketisation from below; 10. Military rule from above; 11. The marketisation of well-being; 12. The marketisation of the social structure; 13. Going nuclear; 14. Strategic paralysis; 15. North Koreans as agents of change; Bibliography; Index.

Hazel Smith is a poet, performer, electronic writer and academic. She has published six volumes of poetry including 'The Erotics of Geography', Tinfish Press, 2008, 'Word Migrants', Giramondo, 2016 and 'Ecliptical', ES-Press, Spineless Wonders, 2022. She has published numerous performance and multimedia works, and has performed and presented her work extensively internationally, has been commissioned by the ABC to write several works for radio, and has been co-recipient of numerous Australia Council for the Arts grants. She is a founding member of the multimedia ensemble austraLYSIS. In 2018, with Will Luers and Roger Dean, she was awarded first place in the Electronic Literature Organisation's Robert Coover prize. In 2023 her collaboration with Luers and Dean, 'Dolphins in the Reservoir', was shortlisted for the UK New Media Writing Prize. Hazel is an Emeritus Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University. She has authored several academic books including 'Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O'Hara', Liverpool University Press, 2000, 'The Writing Experiment', Allen and Unwin, 2005 and 'The Contemporary Literature-Music Relationship', Routledge, 2016. With Roger Dean she co-edited 'Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts', Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Her website is at http://www.australysis.com