Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare (Paperback)

Philip Short (author)

£14.99

Paperback 560 Pages
Published: 06/06/2005

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Synopsis

Pol Pot was an idealistic, reclusive figure with great charisma and personal charm. He initiated a revolution whose radical egalitarianism exceeded any other in history. But in the process, Cambodia desended into madness and his name became a byword for oppression.

In the three-and-a-half years of his rule, more than a million people, a fifth of Cambodia's population, were executed or died from hunger and disease. A supposedly gentle, carefree land of slumbering temples and smiling peasants became a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which absolute obedience was enforced on the 'killing fields'.

Why did it happen? How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity's worst nightmares? Philip Short, the biographer of Mao, has spent four years travelling the length of Cambodia, interviewing surviving leaders of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge movement and sifting through previously closed archives. Here, the former Khmer Rouge Head of State, Pol's brother-in-law and scores of lesser figures speak for the first time at length about their beliefs and motives.

Publisher: John Murray Press
ISBN: 9780719565694
Number of pages: 560
Weight: 419 g
Dimensions: 197 x 129 x 38 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

An extraordinary and brilliant book ... Like a clever and determined detective, Short has exposed the secrets, knitting together a story which it once seemed would never be told. The result is horrifying, but it must be read. A superb, chilling, yet human portrait of a monster A model of research ... an intelligent and compassionate account of the Cambodian nightmare His weighty book, which is as much a history of modern Cambodia as a biography of the man who shaped it, [is written with] with great discretion and sensitivity ... As well as a model of research, this is an intelligent and compassionate account of the Cambodian nightmare. 'The first full biography of the man who led Cambodia into darkness.' - Sue Baker Like a clever and determined detective, Short has exposed the secrets ... The result is horrifying, but it must be read Short has written the definitive account of the nightmarish regime of 1975-1978, responsible for the deaths of some 1.5 million Cambodians. Brings clear thinking to the big questions of blame Short succeeds in building a complete, compelling portrait of the man Comprehensive and eloquent biography of a monster Short unerringly broadens the inquiry to the point where serious history begins, and serious judgements can be made Short's brilliantly detailed account is a salutary one Riveting Philip Short has done a spectacularly efficient job of describing what happened, and how Exhaustive and authoritative Short has made a Herculean effort to reconstruct the past. The result is a searching account