David Fields: What road traffic reveals about North Korea’s economy

A recent undergraduate research project used satellite imagery to analyze the number of cars on the streets of North Korea’s second-biggest city, and uncovered some surprising results. Historian David Fields joins the podcast to discuss what the data reveals about infrastructure upgrades and vehicle use in the DPRK, as well as to discuss his book on Syngman Rhee and what he learned from reading decades of the first South Korean president’s diaries. David Fields is the associate director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fields earned his PhD in history at the same University, specializing in U.S.-Korean relations. He is the author of “Foreign Friends: Syngman Rhee, American Exceptionalism, and the Division of Korea,” and the editor of “The Diary of Syngman Rhee” and “Divided America, Divided Korea: The U.S. and Korea During and After the Trump Years.” About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.