The ideology sustaining the Kim dynasty did not emerge from a vacuum. It was shaped, in part, by American missionaries who built a Christian following in Pyongyang in the late nineteenth century. That is the argument at the heart of Korean Messiah, and it reframes how Americans should think about their relationship with the Korean Peninsula and the Kim regime.

Join the Korea Economic Institute of America and the Atlantic Council for a conversation with China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal Jonathan Cheng on his landmark new book, Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult.

Cheng traces the surprising American origins of the Kim dynasty’s personality cult and asks what understanding those origins can tell us about the nature of the regime Washington and Seoul face today.

[This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]