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The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime
by Bradley Hope
How did an Ivy League activist become a global fugitive? The New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil chronicles the heart-pounding tale of a self-taught operative his high-stakes attempt subvert the North Korean regime.
In the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it.
What began as a trip down the safe and well-worn path of organizing soon morphed into something more dangerous. Hong journeyed to China, outwitting Chinese security services as he helped asylum-seeking North Koreans escape across the border. Meanwhile, Hong's secret organization, Cheollima Civil Defense (later renamed Free Joseon), began tracking the North Korean government's activities, and its volatile third-generation ruler, Kim Jong-un. Free Joseon targeted North Korean diplomats who might be persuaded to defect, while drawing up plans for a government-in-exile. After the shocking broad-daylight assassination in 2017 of Kim Jong-nam, the dictator's older brother, Hong, along with U.S. Marine veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry Kim Jong-nam's family to safety. Then Hong took the group a step further. He initiated a series of high-stakes direct actions, culminating in an armed raid at the North Korean embassy in Madrid—an act that would put Ahn behind bars and turn Hong into one of the world's most unlikely fugitives.
In the tradition of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of a man who turns his back on the status quo—to instead live boldly by his principles. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Bradley Hope—who broke numerous details of Hong's operations in the Wall Street Journal—now reveals the full contours of this remarkable story of idealism and insanity, hubris and heroism, all set within the secret battle for the future of the world's most mysterious and unsettling nation.
"Wall Street Journal reporter Hope delivers a riveting saga of one man's unlikely crusade to free North Korea...Hope has impressive access to Free Joseon and other activist groups and draws a vivid portrait of Hong, whose mix of courage, opportunism, and yearning fascinates. This is the stuff great political thrillers are made of." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A fast-paced, true-life thriller pitting a merciless North Korean state against a band of high-tech, courageous activists...By eroding the North Korean ideology that its leaders are 'godlike and undefeatable,' Hope amply shows, Cheollima's people deserve medals instead of being prosecuted. A page-turner of a spy-vs.-spy tale that, one hopes, will eventually see the good guys carry the day." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The Rebel and the Kingdom is an expertly crafted thriller that makes you turn the page. What makes it all the more remarkable is that it's all true. Bradley Hope is a first-rate reporter and writer, and he has found a subject worthy of his skills in Adrian Hong, a Korean American idealist who set out, improbably enough, to topple the North Korean regime." - Max Boot, columnist for the Washington Post, author of The Road Not Taken
"One of the most harrowing and inspiring stories I've ever read...This book left me in tears. Hope tells this inconceivable and heart-wrenching story with compassion, humanity, and integrity." - Yeonmi Park, bestselling author of In Order to Live
"The engrossing inside story of two recent events that are jaw-dropping even for North Korea, and the obsessive man behind them...This is a terrific piece of up-close reportage that reads like a spy thriller but is all too real." - Anna Fifield, author of The Great Successor
This information about The Rebel and the Kingdom was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bradley Hope, based in London, is the New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Gerald Loeb Award winner. Formerly a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and a correspondent in the Middle East, Hope is co-founder of Project Brazen, a journalism studio and production company.
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