Editor's Picks

This week, don’t miss a history of the North Korean personality cult, a Nobel laureate’s memoir of growing up in Communist Romania, and new essays by David Sedaris

By Jim Kelly

North Korea is as much a personality cult as it is a nation, and Jonathan Cheng does a masterful job explaining how the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, pulled it off. It helped that he was the son of two fervent Christians and grew up during a period of such high missionary zeal that Pyongyang earned the nickname “Jerusalem of the East.” He knew the power of religion and that by persecuting Christians he could become a deity, even developing his own rituals and symbols. He killed millions of his citizens, but he also dramatically improved health care and READ ON