Andrei Lankov. The Real North Korea. Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist State.

A. Lankov is a Russian-born professor at South Korea's Kookmin U. I cannot, obviously, judge how accurate his book is but it is a breath of fresh air among neocon-dominated country studies in the US. Current Anglo-American political scientists mostly carry a few pre-set theses on the situation in any country, which they support with cherry-picked "evidence." (E.g. see my review of Richard Sakwa's Putin--and this is not the worst example; on the contrary among the best). Furthermore, neocon-informed country studies take their anthropomorphism of international politics--as if countries were characters in the Greek tragedy with no domestic politics and immutable characters--to an unbearable degree. Measured and well-researched (again, unlike neocon "experts" he has a working knowledge of the language of country he writes about), his book is a welcome addition. In particular, he discusses, at length, why despite official slogans of Korea's unification both  North Korean and South Korean elites are comfortable with the situation as it is.