Book Review: “The Great Successor” by Anna Fifield

Book Review: “The Great Successor” by Anna Fifield

At first glance, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un might seem like a caricature: a chubby young man with a strange haircut, ruling a hermit kingdom with nukes. But in “The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un”, Anna Fifield strips away the absurdity and propaganda to reveal something far more unsettling: a shrewd, calculating, and dangerously capable dictator. Fifield, the Asia-Pacific editor of The Washington Post, has visited North Korea multiple times and her access, diligence, and eye for the surreal make this biography both authoritative and addictive.

Published in 2019, this book reads like Orwellian nonfiction. Kim’s story is drenched in myth, manipulation, and misery. As a boy, he was cloistered in opulence as heir to a nuclear dynasty while the country around him starved. By eight, he was driving trucks at 80 mph and hitting ten targets in ten seconds, at least according to the regime’s claims. LOL By adulthood, he had ruthlessly purged his uncle, assassinated his half-brother with VX nerve agent in a crowded airport, and tamed Donald Trump of 2018 with photo-ops and flattery.

“Most dictators are not overthrown by an angry populace marching in the streets. The vast majority are removed by insiders from the regime,” writes Fifield. “There’s a good reason for terrifying the people at the top.”

Fifield chronicles Kim’s rise with an eye for irony. North Korea was once richer than South Korea. Its capital, Pyongyang, was once known as the “Jerusalem of the East,” a center of vibrant Christianity. Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, whose name means “become the sun”, used to have rice hand-picked for him (Imagine that!). That legacy of imperial privilege now survives in Kim Jong Un’s Wonsan beachfront mansion, complete with floating pools and Jet Skis, even while his people live in darkness and fear.

There are moments of tragic absurdity. A North Korean defector recalls realizing he had been lied to his whole life: “They told us we were poor because of sanctions.” In reality, it was due to state mismanagement, corruption, and the fantasy of Juche, or “self-reliance”, an ideology so thin, Fifield notes, that its monument gets more text in official encyclopedias than the ideology itself.

And then there are the quirks. North Koreans cannot share the name “Kim Jong Un.” As soon as he gone into office, every person bearing the name had to have it changed. The man has used numerous pseudonyms on foreign trips, once holding a Brazilian passport to visit Disneyland. He reveres basketball, especially the Chicago Bulls, and shares an odd friendship with Dennis Rodman. His younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, now commands significant influence. His secretive older brother was killed in Malaysia with a perfume bottle full of nerve agent. His youngest sister trained in computer science at Harvard but decided to become a pop singer and actor. The Kim family is part KGB thriller, part telenovela.

One of the most eye-opening parts of the book is the regime’s use of cyberattacks as modern warfare. Fifield shows how North Korea has trained elite teams of hackers to siphon billions of dollars annually, a lifeline for a regime under global sanctions. In cyberwarfare, North Korea punches far above its weight. Kids as young as 11 win top medals in international championships. Such is their training and dexterity.

Fifield doesn’t merely recount Kim’s savagery; she contextualizes it. North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world at 1.2 million soldiers but its true power lies in its unpredictability. Kim’s rapid nuclear development program and mastery of spectacle gave him leverage on the world stage. He played Donald Trump masterfully, turning the U.S. president’s desire for historic photos into diplomatic theater.

“In every respect, he proved that he was no madman,” Fifield writes. “But a calculating leader with a strategy that was proceeding according to plan.”

That’s the most chilling realization in this book: Kim Jong Un is not irrational. He’s effective. Unlike the erratic cartoon villain he’s often painted as, he is a dictator who understands power, optics, and fear.

The Great Successor is not just a biography. As my excerpts showed, it’s a study in propaganda, the limits of ideology, and the strange durability of dynastic dictatorship. It forces us to reckon with a leader who’s both more banal and more dangerous than the jokes suggest.

Anna was optimistic in 2019 that Kim would open up to the world like Deng Xioping did. Well, we are in 2025 and there are no signs yet. My heart goes out to the tremendous human potential wasting away while they see their Southern counterparts live out their dreams. Kim took over at 28. He is now 41, at least officially. I leave the rest and the implication of age being on his side to your imagination.

Astute, grimly funny, and deeply human. Read Anna’s book if you want to understand one of the most opaque regimes on Earth, and the man at its helm.