Growing up in the U.S. South, Bradley K. Martin weighed career goals ranging from preacher to president. After majoring in history at Princeton, studying law at Emory and serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Vietnam War-era Thailand, he settled on journalism and spent decades as an Asia correspondent. The two-time Pulitzer nominee was bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the Baltimore Sun, Asia Times and Asian Financial Intelligence. For Bloomberg News he was chief North Korea watcher. He has taught journalism as a visiting professor at Ohio University, Louisiana State University, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fresno State University and the University of Iowa. His earlier book, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, won the Asia-Pacific Special Book Prize. The New York Review of Books called it "simply the best book ever written about North Korea."