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| Author Blaine Harden |
About the book: Shin Dong-hyuk was born in a completely isolated North Korean prison camp, lived in extreme information deprivation for over 20 years, and is one of the very few inmates who have escaped. Shin knew nothing of contemporary existence--all information about history and the outside world was a systematic barrage of untruths. Through the lens of Shin's life, journalist Blaine Harden shows the impact of information on our lives, both for good and for ill. Blaine Harden is an American author and journalist. For 28 years, he worked for The Washington Post as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. For four years, he was a local and national correspondent for The New York Times and a writer for the Times Magazine. He has also reported for PBS Frontline, The Economist, Foreign Policy, National Geographic and the Guardian. His latest book is The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot.
The UAA/APU Books of the Year program, part of the Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues Project, encourages faculty to integrate into their curriculum books selected for their relevance and timeliness.
The 2013-2015 UAA/APU Books of the Year are The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone and Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.Together these books question the power of ideas and ideology to shape our realities,and emphasize the importance of critically assessing the validity of information.
