Dae-Sook Suh is the director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii.

Necessary background for our understadning of this mystic leader and the regime that he built...a major conribution to scholarship and essential reading for anyuone intersted in contemporary Korea. Journal of Asian Studies Dae-Sook Suh... has to be commended for a thoroughly-researched study of the first North Korean president Il Sum King. Suh has produced a first rate historical study of the North Korean leader, his life and his politics. Korean Quarterly

• Preface to the Paperback Edition Preface Acknowledgements Part I: Young Kim and the United Army 1. Background 2. Kim and the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army 3. Guerrilla Accomplishments Part II: Consolidation of Political Power 4. The Soviet Occupation of North Korea 5. The Workers' Party of Korea 6. The Republic and the Army Part III: Challenges to Kim's Leadership 7. The Korean War and Kim's Rivals 8. After the War Part IV: Search for Korean Identity 9. Mobilization Campaigns 10. The Sino-Soviet Dispute and Kim Il Sung Part V: Problems in Kim's Independence 11. The Rise of the Military 12. The South Korean Revolution 13. Disintegration of the Partisan Group Part VI: North Korea Under Kim 14. South Korea and the Third World 15. The Shift from Party to State 16. Semiretirement in the New Era Part VII: Church'e and the Republic 17. On Kim's Political Thought 18. The Republic by Kim Appendix 1. Partisans of the United Army in North Korean Politics Appendix 2. Partisans of the United Army Not in North Korean Politics Appendix 3. Partisans Who Died Before the Liberation of Korea Appendix 4: Chronology of Kim Il Sung Notes Bibliography Index