Pol Pot: The history of a nightmare

by Philip Short

Observing Pol Pot at close quarters during the one and only official visit he ever made abroad, to China in 1975, Philip Short was struck by the Cambodian leader's charm and charisma. Yet Pol Pot's utopian experiments in social engineering would result in the death of one in every five Cambodians--more than a million people.
How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity's worst nightmares? To answer these questions, Short traveled through Cambodia, interviewing former Khmer Rouge leaders and sifting through previously closed archives around the world. Key figures, including Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary, Pol's brother-in-law and foreign minister, speak here for the first time.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, Asia, War, Biography Memoir

Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

About the author

Philip Short is a British journalist and author specializing in biographies of historical dictators, he studied at Cambridge University, he worked as a journalist for the BBC for 25 years as a foreign correspondent(1972-97), a job that allowed him to travel widely and experience wildly different cultures, it would prove a great learning experience that still benefits him as an author.

After his work for the BBC, he taught journalism in the University of Iowa, in the US. He now resides in Provence, USA, with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rewritten in honour of the Mayan Calendar and it being the final day of the entire world and all that.

So this book is a history of the way the world really did end in one particular country.

I imagine at some point in the early 70s Saloth Sar, later to be cutely renamed as Pol Pot, was listening to the radio and on came that well known utopian anthem Imagine :

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can...

and dweedly dweeb. And he thought, in a marxist-Leninist-Maoist kind of way - "yeah, that's it! only it should go something like

Imagine there's no money and no cities too
None of that Western education
And no medecine too
Imagine there's no families
That would be pretty easy to do
Imagine all the people
Being driven out of the cities at gunpoint and forced to work at vast crazy agricultural projects where they die like flies
You-ou-ouuuu you may say that I'm a dreamer
But my name is Saloth Sar
I'm sure someday you'll join me
in my utopiah


This book is a mad boggling journey into the darkest heart of insane utopianism. The Khmer Rouge were the all time most deranged revolutionaries ever to succeed in capturing a country and then imposing their madness on the whole population. Forget Apocalypse Now - the horror! the horror! ™ - Cambodia Year Zero (1975) really was the horror, the horror. Imagine the people of Vancouver or Glasgow or your own local big city being given 48 hours to clear out - and that includes hospital inmates. Those left after 48 hours will be shot by ten year olds in black pajamas. Imagine that.


Well, it all carried on happening for four years, until Vietnam invaded and removed Pol Pot and his fellow psychopaths. And everyone from the USA to Britain onwards condemned Vietnam for their aggression! Ha ha - you have to have a quiet chuckle over international diplomacy. Just think - when the USA and UK invaded Iraq to get rid of another crazy dictator, who only measured about 9 per cent on the Pol Pol Megalomania Scale, they expected everyone to perfectly understand the absolute necessity for it. And they were quite hurt when the rest of the world said er… not really.

Pol Pot attempted to get rid of everyone's ego, completely. The way he could tell you still had an ego was if you cared about anything apart from working with your bare hands on vast crazy agricultural projects where you were likely be dead within a month. Egos were bourgeois and were to be eradicated. So if you didn’t die like a fly, Pol Pot would send a ten year old in black pajamas round to find out why you were still alive.

Great book. Not for everyone, I can understand that.

[Zahra · Rating 3 out of 5]

این کتاب بیشتر از اینکه درباره شخص پل پوت باشه درباره خمرهای سرخه. یه گروه کمونیستی که از سال ۱۹۷۵ تا ۱۹۷۹ به رهبری پل پوت پادشاه کشور، سیهانوک رو برکنار کرده و قدرت رو در کامبوج به دست گرفتن.
کامبوج یه کشور کوچیک تو جنوب شرق آسیاست که بیشتر مردمش رو قوم خمر تشکیل میدن و در قرن دوازده پادشاهی آنگکور رو برپا کردن. اما دوران طلایی برای همون قرن دوازدهه و از اون دوران به بعد مدام مورد حمله همسایه هاشون یعنی ویتنام و تایلند قرار میگرفتن و در دوران استعمار، فرانسوی ها کامبوج رو اشغال کردن و بعد از جنگ دوم جهانی، فرانسوی ها مستعمراتشون رو به تدریج از دست دادن و آمریکا همزمان با شروع جنگش با ویتنام وارد کامبوج شد و این کشور رو تحت نفوذ خودش درآورد. این اتفاق باعث ناآرامی ها و نارضایتی های گسترده در کامبوج شد و شورشی ها به جنگل ها پناه بردن و تحت تعلیمات نظامی نیروهای کمونیست ویتنامی قرار گرفتن اما نفوذ بیش از حد ویتنامی ها زیاد به مذاق ملی گراهای کامبوجی خوش نیومد و تصمیم گرفتن دور یک دانشجوی فرنگ رفته و درس خونده به نام سولوت سور که بیشتر با نام مستعار پل پوت شناخته میشه جمع بشن. این حرکت، نخستین هسته گروهی رو تشکیل داد که بعدها به نام خمرهای سرخ شناخته شدن. اونا اول تعدادشون کم بود. یه گروه از شورشی های فراری که توی جنگل ها قایم شده بودن و علیه پادشاه کامبوج میجنگیدن اما همه چی بعد از شروع بمباران‌های آمریکا تغییر کرد. آمریکا به بهانه نابودی کمونیست های ویتنام شمالی که تو خاک کامبوج پنهان شده بودن شروع به بمباران مناطق مرزی کامبوج کرد. این کار به جای اینکه کمونیست ها رو نابود کنه بدتر مردم رو پرت کرد تو بغل کمونیست ها و باعث تضعیف حکومت مرکزی شد و تازه تمام این مشکلات کم نبود که یه کودتای نظامی هم اتفاق افتاد و پادشاه رو از مقامش عزل کرد! بنظر میاد پادشاه به اندازه کافی تمایل به نابودی کمونیست ها نشون نداده بود اما آمریکا درگیر یه جنگ بود که میخواست ببره برای همین بعد از عزل پادشاه یه رژیم دست نشانده و خشن نظامی رو جایگزین کرد که درست و حسابی دمار از روزگار کمونیست ها دربیاره. پادشاه هم که جایی نداشت بره پشت کمونیست ها دراومد و علنا شروع به تبلیغ کمونیست ها کرد. این حرکت مردم رو چندین برابر قبل طرفدار کمونیست ها کرد چون مردم عادی که زیر و بم خط مشی سیاسی-فلسفی پل پوت رو نمی‌فهمیدن اما به شاهشون وفادار بودن. بعد از سقوط سایگون و پیروزی ویتنام شمالی، دیکتاتوری نظامی کامبوج هم سقوط کرد چون به هرحال کاملا وابسته به آمریکا بود و حالا آمریکا دیگه رفته بود. خمرهای سرخ از جنگل ها بیرون اومدن و جای دیکتاتوری نظامی رو با یه چیزی صدها برابر وحشیانه تر پر کردن. اونا بدون هدر دادن وقت سیاست هاشون رو پیاده کردن.هنوز چند ساعت از فتح شهرها نرسیده تمام معلم ها، کادرهای اداری، روزنامه نگاران و هرکی که سواد داشت و به دیدشون نخبه بود رو کشتن و بقیه مردم شهر رو تخلیه کردن و بردن سر مزارع کشاورزی گذاشتن. حکومت سواد و تحصیلات عالی رو غیر ضروری اعلام کرد چرا که بنظرش افراد میتونستن هرچیزی رو که برای زندگی نیاز دارن با کار در مزارع برنج بدست بیارن! اونا هرکی رو که حتی عینک میزد به جرم نخبه و روشنفکر بودن به زندان مینداختن، در مدارس رو بستن و اونا رو تبدیل به زندان کردن مثل زندان معروف s21 در پنوم پن که یه زمانی یه دبیرستان بود اما تبدیل شد به یکی از مخوف ترین زندان های رژیم با بیش از ۹۹ درصد مرگ زندانی هاش! مهم نبود کی باشی چیکاره باشی، وقتی سر و کارت به این زندان میفتاد، عاقبتت به کشتزارهای مرگ خارج از شهر کشیده میشد. خمرهای سرخ دنبال یه کشور ایده‌آل بودن و تا زمانی که تمام مردم برابر نمیشدن، دست از کار نمیکشیدن؛اما اون ها فقط خواهان برابری مردم نبودن بلکه همه افراد جامعه رو یکسان میخواستن. تفکرات یکسان، اندیشه های یکسان، لباس یکسان،...! یه ایده غیر ممکن که حاضر بودن برای عملی کردنش آدم بکشن. اون ها حتی اجازه نمی‌دادن مردم غذا بکارن! چون کاشتن مواد غذایی به معنی خوردن غذای متفاوت از بقیه بود و نشانه فردگرایی و حکومت ترجیح میداد مردمش از گشنگی بمیرن تا نشانه‌ای از فردگرایی وجود داشته باشه.
و سرانجام بعد از چندسال حکومت و کشتار یک سوم مردمشون (بیش از دو میلیون نفر)، با حمله به ویتنام سند سقوط خودشون رو امضا کردن. نقشه حمله به ویتنام اینقدر احمقانه بود که می‌ره جزو اون دسته از نقشه هایی که فقط از ترس نه گفتن بهش و دچار شدن به عاقبت بدتر از مرگ که نتیجه مخالفت با شخص اول مملکته باهاش موافقت شده بود. جنگ کاملا یه طرفه بود. ویتنام رسما زمین رو با خمرها شخم زد و ظرف چند روز کل کامبوج رو گرفت و پادشاه رو دوباره برگردوند به قدرت و خمرها فرار کردن.
حالا انگار همه چی reset شده و برگشته بود به چهار سال قبل. پادشاه روی تخت شاهیش نشسته و برگشته به قدرت و خمرهای سرخ رفتن تو جنگل! اما خب درواقع هیچی به حالت قبل برنگشته! این فاجعه این قتل عام رخ داده و هیچ مرهم و التیامی براش وجود نداره و اکثر کسایی که این جنایت و هولوکاست رو رغم زدن بدون مجازات درخور جنایت هاشون رها شدن.
پ.ن: در سال ۱۹۹۸ خمرها که هنوز تو جنگل ها بودن با تسلیم کردن پول پوت به دادگاه جنایت علیه بشریت موافقت کردن. گفته میشه پول پوت بعد از شنیدن این نقشه، خودکشی کرد

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 4 out of 5]

معمولا هر از چند گاهی در مورد دیکتاتورها کتاب یا مطلبی می خونم و معمولا سعی می کنم ترجمه از آقای بیژن اشتری باشه
جدا از این که همه دیکتاتورها در میزان درجه حماقت و خصوصیات دیگر بی نهایت به هم شبیه هستند ، باید اعتراف کنم که این یکی یعنی پل بوت نفرت انگیزترین دیکتاتوری بود که تا حالا داستانش رو خونده بودم .
امیدوارم که هیج کدام از دیکتاتورهای فعلی جهان ، این کتاب و به خصوص شرح شکنجه ها و گرسنگی هایی که خمرهای سرخ به ملت کامبوج دادند را نخوانند که احتمالا شکنجه های فعلی در برابر روش های خمرهای سرخ شبیه شوخی خواهد بود .

اما پل بوت که بود و چه کرد ؟
پل بوت که قبل از گرفتن قدرت به برادر شماره یک معروف بود ، کاری که مائو در آرزوی آن بود را انجام داد ، پل بوت کلیه شهرها را از سکنه خالی کرد و همه مردم کشاورز شدند ! از پزشک تا استاد دانشگاه ، کارگر و کارمند هر روز باید ساعتها در مزارع جان می کندند تا غذا تولید کنند ( فیلم کشتارهای مرگ ، بخشی از این فاجعه را نشان می دهد ) . مثلا پل بوت پس از تصرف پنوم پن ، پایتخت کامبوج ، دستور داد فورا دو میلیون سکنه آن ، شهر را ترک کنند . ( واضح است که جا به جایی دو میلیون نفر به تجهیزات و تدارکات حداقلی محتاج است – اما خمرهای سرخ هیچ تدارکاتی انجام ندادند و تعداد زیادی از سکنه پنوم پن در هنگام انتقال از گرسنگی ، بی آبی و بیماری و خستگی از پا در آمدند )
در کامبوج تحت فرمانروایی پل بوت ، هر کامبوجی باید روزی 12 تا 16 ساعت کار می کرد و فقط حداقل غذا و کالری را برای زنده ماندن دریافت می کرد . اگر فردی علف یا حیوان یا زباله ای پیدا می کرد و میخورد مجازات او حداکثر و بالاترین مجازات بود ، چون خمرها اعتقاد داشتند که همه باید غذای یکسان بخورند ( البته کادررهبری و نظامیان بهترین غذا را دریافت می کردند ). رژیم خمرهای سرخ ، یک چهارم از جمعیت هشت میلیونی کامبوج را یا توسط بیماری ، تشنگی ، گرسنگی ، خستگی حاصل از کار و یا اعدام ( خمرهای سرخ احتمالا به دلیل کمبود امکانات یا صرفه جویی از گلوله برای اعدام استفاده نمی کردند ، فرد بدبخت توسط ضربه های بیل یا سنگ کشته می شد )از بین بردند و از لحاظ تلفات 25% جمعیت و همین طور استدلال های پوچ و احمقانه ، مرزهای حماقت و سفاکی نوع بشر را جا به جا کردند .
این رژیم پوشالی تنها پس از چهار سال حکومت سیاه ، با حمله ویتنام از هم پاشید

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel this book is sort of misleadingly packaged: it's not much of a biography, presumably because there's not a lot known about Pol Pot the man. Or maybe it is known but there's still just not that much to say: Short does dutifully record biographical details, but they never seem to add up to any fleshed-out understanding of a human being... And maybe that's the point. Maybe the dark emptiness at the root of the Khmer Rouge's ideology and actions is exactly that: a lack not just of humanity, but of any comprehensible substance at all.

Anyway, while this book kind of sucks as biography, it's good as a highly thorough political history of Cambodia in the second half of the twentieth century. I thought Short had a "just the facts ma'am" approach that worked well for this material. He assumes that his readers have some familiarity with accounts of Cambodians' suffering under the Khmer Rouge so doesn't dwell too much on cataloging these and highlighting the horrors, instead reporting them within the context of everything else. I felt he did a good job throughout of contrasting the excesses of the Khmer Rouge to those of other regimes and noting in which ways they did or did not surpass what has occurred elsewhere. He also seemed to be fairly even-handed in his evaluation of all involved parties, including the United States, leaving the reader feeling justifiably bleak and shitty about basically everyone in the world.

The most depressing -- though, I suppose, unsurprising -- thing about this book was learning about how while the Khmer Rouge's reign in the late seventies was particularly horrific in scope and degree, life and politics in Cambodia weren't that great either before, or since.

To be honest, this was not the breeziest or most fun summer read. Just between the two of us, this book was kind of a downer.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever a new friend is perusing my bookshelves, I always find myself mentally cringing when they reach a certain point awaiting the persistent judgment-laced query: "why do you have so many biographies on dictators and mass murderers?" It's a hard question to answer, if only because it means I have to unpack nearly a decade's worth of my own jumbled thoughts on idealism, social upheaval, human fallibility, and the inevitability of revolution; a task which often leaves the questioner glassy-eyed and drooling as their thoughts turn toward more comfortable musings. That's no fault of the listener though, but more a reflection of my own imprecise grasp of my own ideas. I don't have a fully formed ideology of any sort, but rather a hodgepodge of ideas that I weave together and take apart with the tenacity of an obsessive-compulsive arachnid. This rejection of dogma is, I think, rooted in the lessons learned from the chronicles on my Shelf of Tyranny- our history is chock full of recent examples illustrating the power of an idea to cause much upheaval and while I make ample time to read of success stories (my Shelf of Liberation is directly above my Shelf of Tyranny) I feel that there are more lessons to be learned through the failures. In the case of the Cambodian revolution and the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge, there are learning opportunities by the score.

Chronicling the rise of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) through, first, the struggle to end French colonialism, then to overthrow the monarchy of Prince Sihanouk, and finally to oust the military junta that took control following Sihanouk's abdication, author Philip Short places the revolution firmly in the context of a national history of struggle against outside invaders and the historic distrust for its Vietnamese and Thai neighbors. Likewise, he traces the evolution of the CPK's ideology back to its historical root in the French Revolution, by illustrating the commonalities between those two bloody epochs- the lack of an industrial class of workers made organizing the proletariat impossible so most of the organizing work was shifted onto the illiterate peasants in the countryside who were taught that they did not need to know the particulars of communism but merely needed to adopt the revolutionary struggle into their hearts, entrenching ignorance into the party platform, the struggle was primarily against the monarchy and the corrupt advisers and hangers-on who had found ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the peasantry. Most interesting to me, though, is Short's analysis on how Therevada Buddhism and its emphasis on the abnegation of personal desire and the self created the environment that would allow hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, mainly those forced to evacuate Phnom Penh after its capture by the CPK, to starve to death as they were forced into the countryside to work in the rice paddies as penance for their privileged lives under the old regime.

Put together from dozens of interviews with surviving CPK members, unprecedented access to historical archives, and news sources of the day, Short also does an amazing job at illustrating Cambodia's delicate position as a pawn between the Sino-Soviet struggle to control the Communist International, as well the love-hate relationship with its communist neighbor, Vietnam, a mercurial relationship that could flare into shootings and cross-border raids even as the two countries were working together to throw out American forces. All in all, this was a highly worthwhile read that served to broaden my understanding of modern Cambodian history. If Short gives short shrift to examples of the genocide, it is only because most books on the era already focus primarily on the atrocities and not the events that made such atrocities inevitable.

For those who seek information on the genocide, the amazing 1984 film The Killing Fields has already said all that needs to be said on the subject, and if the enigmatic Pol Pot never steps from the shadows to be analyzed as thoroughly as I had hoped, Short makes clear that this is due to Pol's obsession with secrecy and his desire to never be the face of the party, just the man pulling the strings from behind the curtain. There are tantalizing bits of biography that enter the text, such as the schizophrenia that plagued his wife, but throughout the book the Pol we are treated to is devoid of personality and is shown to be a leader with one goal in mind- revolution at all costs- a singular focus that would allow much to be done in its name.

[EMMA · Rating 2 out of 5]

من اینو به این نیابت خریدم که در مورد "پل پوت" اطلاعاتی کسب کنم ولی حقیقا بیشتر تاریخ معاصر کامبوج و جنگهاش با ویتنام بود!!
مساله بعدی که باعث شد خوشم نیاد از کتاب این بود که نویسنده همش سعی داشت پل پوت رو ابله جلوه بده!مثللا وقتی بورسیه فرانسه برنده شد که بره فرانسه همش میگقت این شانسی بوده و اصلا لیاقتشو نداشته و اینا که خب این نشون میده نویسنده تعصب داره و این رو نوشتنش تاثیر میذاره یعنی رو روایات کردنش.
من دوست ندارم نویسنده ها پیش داوری کنن دوست دارم خودم به نتیجه برسم.
ترجمش خوب بود فقط مشکلی داشت این بود که ویرایش اصلا خوبی نداشت.
*خطر اسپویل*
اگه سواله واستون چطوری حکومت کمونیسم پل پوت سقوط کرد، دلیلش این بود که ویتنام حمله کرد به کامبوج و باعث تضعیف کمونیستها شد و الباقی ماجرا ولی این جنگ حدود دو دهه طول کشید.

در کل کتاب بدی نیست ولی چیزی هم نیست پیشنهادش بکنم شاید کتاب های بهتری در این مورد باشه البته من هوز نمیدونم چین!!!اگه چیزی میدونید خوشحال میشم بهم معرفی کنید.

[The Armchair Nihilist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forensic dissection of one of the 20th century’s bloodiest criminal regimes.

In April 1975 a ragged peasant army marched out of the Cambodian jungle and occupied the capital city Phnom Penh. For the Khmer Rouge this was both the culminating victory in a long and bitter conflict and the start of a campaign to transform Cambodia. They set out to reduce the country to a primal state of “Year Zero” then rebuild a new civilisation from the ground up cleansed of all the corrupting influences of modern urban society. The result was not the agrarian communist Utopia of their dreams but a deranged and sadistic slave state. A quarter of the population perished through famine, torture and executions as the Khmer Rouge first exterminated their enemies then turned on each other. This nightmare dragged on for nearly four years until the Vietnamese army finally invaded and brought it to an end.

The title suggests that this is a biography of the regime’s grinning and disarmingly urbane leader Pol Pot, but it is as much a history of the Khmer Rouge itself. The writer places the movement in its political and historical context as just one actor among many in numerous regional Indochinese conflicts with deep historical roots. Through these it would gradually be drawn into the global theatre of the Cold War.

He also analyses the social and ideological factors that shaped the Khmer Rouge: a mishmash of misappropriated and perverted Marxist thought; traces of Theravada Buddhism; peculiarities of Cambodian character and culture; and a xenophobic nationalism that harked back to the glory of Angkor Wat. All this fermented in the minds of the Khmer Rouge foot soldiers, mostly callow, destitute, backwoods peasants dehumanised by years of jungle warfare. When they were finally unleashed on the unsuspecting population the result was catastrophic.

Anyone seeking a trite and simplistic assessment of the Cambodian genocide (e.g. it was all the fault of “communism”) should give this work a wide berth as it will confound their preconceptions in all kinds of ways. It certainly made me rethink mine. By the time I reached the end my impression of the Khmer Rouge regime was that it was less like the 20th century totalitarian states with which it is usually compared and more like the millenarian apocalyptic peasant revolts of Medieval Europe.

This is a dense, detailed, and demanding 500 page brick of a book and the repellent subject matter alone will be enough to put most people off. Even at this length it would still have benefited from a further chapter explaining the contextual background. As it is the reader is parachuted straight into the political and historical jungle of early twentieth century Indo-China then left to find their own way around. Consequently prospective readers would be advised to first acquire some familiarity with the history of the region as well as some general knowledge of the Cold War.

Although it can be hard going I would encourage anyone interested in this gruesome subject to attempt this impeccably researched work. Writing at the turn of the century the author was one of the last people to interview the surviving players, which alone makes this one of the definitive texts. I learned a lot but I was relieved to finally reach the last page and could turn to some less disturbing bedtime reading. As the title makes clear this really is the stuff of nightmares.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

like a 3.8.

When I started reading this book, I had absolutely no idea just how timely my choice of books was. While starting the section about the 1975 evacuation of Phnom Penh, I did a google search to find photos and discovered that tomorrow, April 17, marks the 40th anniversary of this event, which also marked "Day One" of the new regime headed by Pol Pot under the Khmer Rouge. It also marked day one of roughly three and a half years of starvation, disease, and executions that in total took the lives of 1.5 million people -- about twenty percent of Cambodia's population.

Very briefly, the focus of this book is to reveal how Cambodia's history, its politics, its inner workings at the highest levels and its place in the international scheme of things (the Sino-Soviet split, the Vietnam War, French colonialism, American foreign policy, Cambodian nationalism and its corrupt and repressive government, the divisions of class and society in the country, etc.) all combined to make it possible for someone like Pol Pot and those who followed him to take absolute control of the country and to implement their horrific policies afterward. Short then examines those policies established by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in their efforts to make Cambodia a truly independent nation (which they never did), and “a precious model for humanity." He looks at Pol Pot's paranoia, his failure to take the measure of conditions before putting his revolutionary practices to work, his constant flip-flopping back and forth over his own policies, his insistence that everything done at the top levels should be done in complete secrecy; in short -- the author examines an experiment that ended in not only failure, but also in the senseless deaths of over one million people. While everyone should be familiar with Cambodia's killing fields, Short's book doesn't really dwell there. So if you're looking for books that go into detail about the victims of Pol Pot's ruthless practices, you should really look elsewhere.

I do not agree with the author's ideas about how Pol Pot's Buddhist education served as the basis of some of his programs; there is absolutely no proof that there's any basis for that notion offered here, and to me it's just ridiculous to even say so. Another thing: the title may be slightly misleading in that as I noted earlier, it's much more about historical and other factors in Cambodia than a straightforward biography of Pol Pot. However, putting aside my complaints, it is a very well written, very in-depth and informative approach to understanding the conditions under which something so horrific could have been allowed to happen.

I didn't find it dry at all -- I couldn't stop reading this book.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking for a book to read on the terrors of the Khmer Rouge while I was in Indochina over the past three weeks on holidays, I was fortunate enough to come across GR chum Paul Bryant's excellent review of this book - and based upon the things he had to say, I purchased it and began reading immediately.

I was in Cambodia for the longest part of the vacation, and speaking with survivors of the KR horror while reading this book was almost surreal. But there was something very disturbing about what I was being told and shown by the Cambodians that only became more sinister through the reading of this book.

Norodom Sihanouk was venerated by Cambodians everywhere we went as something of a savior of the people. Sihanouk had recently died (only a couple of months prior to our arrival) and the entire country was still in "official mourning"; despite his recent demise there were entire portions of tours that showed in a pictoral history his involvement in fighting the KR from exhile in China until his triumphant return to rule once again. The propoganda worked effectively on all of us Westerners. Faced with the terror of the KR, any leader that would fight to help out his country could only be seen as a hero, right? That's where Short's book comes in to shed light on the reality that apparently few Cambodians are ever told. Proving the adage that "history is written by the victors", Sihanouk painted himself in such a light that he hasn't had to own-up to the horrible things he did to his countrymen in the search for power. Compared to the KR (who in a few years killed 20% of the country's population), Sihanouk looks like a saint. He is anything but. And Short's exhaustive investigations portray him in the way that I wish the Cambodians could see him. Perhaps that is the worst part of this story: when you have been abused so horribly from one regime your standards are so low that you are willing to overlook a lot of badness.

[Jedi Kitty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book it isn't a Pol Pot biography. Its scope is the communist revolution in Cambodia from its origins to final throes-and it encompasses all players on the domestic and international stages. It is a political history. It is a detailed chronology, with some analysis, and not much pathos. The author writes in a level-headed, impartial manner, often putting the Cambodian tragedy into perspective by comparison to other revolutions. It is unexpectedly dull, zoomed-out reading for the topic. However, it answered my big questions and gave me more to think about. I wasn't expecting to enjoy a book about this subject in any case.

I understand the politics- but am still left with questions about human nature, sociology, psychology and Cambodia itself. (And these were more the questions I hoped to have addresses in a Pol Pot biography- which this apparently is not.) I am still very confused about modern Cambodia. I was shocked to read words that I had heard from Cambodians just a few months ago- accusations that a person has a "Vietnamese head, Khmer body" were the same as those used by Khmer Rogue to justify purges. I was shocked also to learn that Cambodians didn't know that the regime was communist until long after its take over. How is this possible? Crazy.

I picked up this book after a trip to Cambodia. I wanted to understand how the genocide could have happened. This book helped me to understand what made the Communist organization and revolution unique, especially compared to China and Vietnam's. It helped me understand the conditions that the organization was formed in, every step of the way, and how the ideals of the Khmer Rogue leadership were formed, and how they attempted to enact their vision on Cambodia- and why it went to drastically wrong, yet in many ways also according to plan. It also firmly disagrees with the use of the word "genocide" to describe the deaths under the Khmer Rogue.

I almost gave up on it about 15% of the way in. Early 1950's Cambodian communism is really dull reading. There is a lot of information about various Cambodian and Khmer Rogue leaders, and its difficult to keep track of who is who and why they matter among the communists and the right wing government. Cambodian names are difficult for Westerners unused to them, and who have little frame of reference. But writing a large foreign cast well isn't impossible if the author takes the effort to show that these people are more than just names, comma, their position in the government/communist party. Anecdotes, personal quirks, foreshadowing later importance all would have been helpful to turn names into people. The author's focus is not really on biography, there is far far more information and insight into Prince Sihanouk than there is into Pol Pot, for example. There is also detailed discussion of various student meetings, then communist party reorganizations and political recitations on the evolving web of Vietnamese, Chinese and American foreign policies. All of which are very dull reading and told in a very matter-of-fact manner. Like reading a timeline. Its pacing is unfortunate, because you know horrible things are happening, and reading hints about them makes your heart race...The contrast of small doses of horror with large swathes of dry political history is not easy reading.


The words that have the most impact are quotations. Those excerpts show the horror and mindset of the Khmer Rogue and the people in Cambodia at that time.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not often that biographies or autobiographies do not have photos inserted in the middle of the book. Here, there are a good number of them. One shows smiling soldiers, walking, rifles slung on their shoulders. In their hands are decapitated heads of their victims, supposedly communists.

I wonder how it feels to grab by my hands the hair of these freshly cut heads, carrying them like chickens. Will I be able to smile like these soldiers? Maybe not for the first time. I'd probably be grim-faced or pale with horror. But after months of doing so, helped perhaps by the fact that these same persons whose heads I am now tossing here and there like coconuts had also done the same to the heads of my friends or comrades they had killed (and had eaten their livers), having their heads now might indeed be a happy moment, not much different from the elation corporate headhunters would have after having successfully pirated topnotch executives from rival firms.

Before I read this book the name Pol Pot had only always brought to my mind Cambodia and the movie Killing Fields which I had watched a long time ago and this idea that here was an evil man like Hitler and Stalin who rose to power and started killing his own people. But now I know that Pol Pot was actually at first a normal young man: shy, soft-spoken, a good lecturer and publicity-shy. The atrocities did not start with him. Those soldiers carrying those decapitated heads were not his. Before he came to power and did his own killings he had been exposed to gruesome violence and numbing brutality consistently. A seemingly endless succession of harrowing images in his consciousness bearing the message that human life is worth very little and that the primary natural law was either to kill or be killed.


Then, of course, Cambodia at that time was a boiling cauldron where all the ingredients of a time-proven lethal mixture were swimming in that small country: Marxist, Maoist, Leninist theories of social revolution; Chinese, Russian and US interventions; ancient hatred among the neighbors: Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam; and those mad and half-mad despots.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very dense and politically aware tome. It does a five star job of explaining Pol Pot's motivations from the early years of the revolution to his final days as a proud failure. The Afterword drags Mr. Short's work down a notch due to its clumsy, shoehorned message that America's activities on the international front are comparable to the Khmer Rouge's atrocities. It's like the most colorful balloon in the world being deflated in a few scant seconds. I also struggled with the amount of attention provided to King Sihanouk in this book. The Anghkor ('Organization') rise to power should have come in the first hundred pages. Instead, they came much later. These are my only gripes. Otherwise, it was very informative and painted a picture more stark than even Mao's backwards regime.

[Tom Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book finishes up my reading for the time being on Cambodia and its recent history. I did learn more about this secretive leader but I still think that I have many unanswered questions. Sometimes the author would just say "and Pol Pot had nothing interesting to say in this meeting". I would at least like to know what it he said as the author had no trouble quoting others around him.

It helped me understand some of the policies and politics that led to the extremely difficult times that the Cambodians suffered through. They were used as a playing chip for World Powers to build their spheres of influence and Cold War power.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philip Short's Pol Pot is an outstanding biography of one of the greatest monsters of the twentieth century as well as a first rate political history of Cambodia from 1920 to 1998 the year Pol Pot finally died.

Having already written a biography of Mao Tse Tung, Short began this project with a solid background in the politics of South-East Asia and the methods of communist insurgents operating in the area.

"Pol Pot" was the nom de guerre for Saloth Sar the son of a Cambodian rice farmer born in 1925 in what was then in French Indo-China and which is now in Cambodia. After failing to gain admission to secondary school (lycee) Pol Pot moved to Paris where from 1949 to 1952 he studied radio electronics without managing to complete his diploma. During this time he also joined the Vietnamese Communist Party. In 1953, he returned to Cambodia where he found his vocation that of being an insurgent leader.

Although nominally under the control of the Vietnamese Communist Party he renamed his Cambodian section the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1966. The following year again without the approval of the Vietnamese. Communist party he launched a revolution in Cambodia that culminated in his Khmer Rouge forces taking control of Cambodia or Kampuchea in 1975. He would then launch a reign of terror in Kampuchea during which 1.75 to 3.25 million people would die over the next four years.

The Vietnamese were horrified by the actions of Pol Pot. They invaded Cambodia in 1997 and by 1979 had succeeded in taking control of Cambodia. Pol Pot fled to Thailand where he lived in hiding for six years before returning to Cambodia where he lived for another 13 years in a remote jungle enclave that the controlled.

Pol Pot was a man remarkable for his ability to survive prolonged periods of clandestinity and to lead jungle insurgencies. A soon as he acquired the reins of power he launched onto a campaign of murder of extraordinary proportions. Philip Short's book presents a remarkably informing biography of this horrifying player on the stage of the world history that I recommend highly.

[جابر نودهی · Rating 5 out of 5]

حذف پول از مبادلات، کمی بعد حذف مبادلات حتی به صورت کالا به کالا، تخلیه شهرها و واداشتن تمام جمعیت به کشاورزی ، ممنوعیت داشتن وسایل زندگی به جز یک عدد کتری و . . .
تمام اینها و بیشتر از اینها در این کتاب غریب. روایتی بی نظیر از شکل گیری، حکمرانی و متلاشی شدن خمرهای سرخ

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Short provided a fantastic, exhaustive outlook for all those wanting more information about how such a violently fatalistic government could come to dominate the political landscape of Cambodia (starting with the early 1950s up until the modern-day leadership of the late 90s - the book was published around 2000, I believe) - I do agree with many reviewers that life under the Khmer Rouge leadership itself was largely absent from such a lengthy text.

I understand that Short wanted to get more into the mindsets of the surviving Khmer Rouge leadership, those closest to Pol Pot - his mentors, top aides, inner circle members - in order to fully comprehend (at least as best as someone with any ounce of sanity could) - their ideology and reasoning for choosing to enforce such a radical (read: insane) form of communism, specific only to Cambodian national identity and their misinterpretations of the Theravada Buddhist traditions.

For God's sake, I mean... perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all had higher body counts - but that would make sense, of course, given they had much higher populations (as well as succeeded better militarily than the Cambodian soldiers, who were completely stripped of any morale). When Mao Zedong clearly thinks that you're a madman who isn't really "winning the hearts and the minds of the people" by forcing them to abandon all of their earthly possessions, live apart from their spouses and children, work the fields day in and day out with no money (oh yeah, money was banned without any real system or idea of what to do in its place) then you know, you're probably a madman.

Not only this, but even those who embraced the ideology - which not only worked like "normal" communism to favor the collective over the individual, but also worked to actually rid the individual of any SELF in favor of the group - were routinely executed or, as Pol liked to say, "purges of the masses" or "purges of the leadership." So imagine if you're someone in the middle, somewhat neutral, or somewhat doubtful. How will you feel when you see that someone who has been utterly, fanatically loyal and supportive of the CPK, is denounced as a traitor? Then executed in a brutal fashion without even the slightest evidence to support these claims of duplicity? Yeah, I know it's not really the time for jokes, but they really needed better leaders/politicians who were familiar with publicity and propaganda to create a program that would actually work for the public. Or at least work for I don't know, five years, ten years, before it started to completely dissolve?

Basically, the Khmer Rouge leadership managed the impossible: to gain control of the whole of Cambodia, only to throw it all away in under four years' time, due not just to inefficient planning, but rather the lack of any real planning whatsoever.

I am in agreement with reviewers who have felt that Short's biography on Pol Pot and the entirety of life under Khmer Rouge rule was a bit short (someone remarked that it was only about 140 pages of about 460 pages of text) and too much time was spent discussing the overall conflict with Vietnam, China, the US, the former USSR, Thailand, etc. Especially too much time was spent on Prince Sihanouk.

I will next read Elizabeth Becker's When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution to get a better idea of what went on under the KR leadership and how the people were forced to live. I don't necessarily want all of the super graphic details, but I'm guessing if I was spared from them in this book, then I'll likely be forced to read about them more frequently in another book. Also, Becker was mentioned in Short's biography as one of the few western journalists who had access to Pol Pot and was able to interview him before he was removed from power, so I think it should be a lot more of an interesting read.

I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone looking to read more about Southeast Asian conflicts/totalitarianism in general, but I think on the latter subject, Becker's book will be more informative. Personally, this is my second biography (this year! lol) by Philip Short, and I preferred Putin: His Life and Times to Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare.

4 solid stars.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a biography as such, but it is a very well written political history. A nightmare, that's right, you can say that again.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just started this massive tome, which should be very awful and depressing, right? I mean, savage insane dictator convinces everybody in the country to go nuts and die.

Yet I find humor here, which says more about me than about life in Cambodia in the 1930s.

Or does it?

"For the young, Phnom Penh in the 1930s was a place of wonderment...each spring crowds gathered to wtach the Royal Oxen plough the Sacred Furrow..." (p.26 in the hard cover)

Not too long after that tidbit we get into the concubine situation, which makes me think there was some subtle symbolism at work here.

The symbolism here is less subtle: During ceremonies the King sat on a platform and everybody else was below so they had a good view of the Royal feet.

And if they wanted to address the King, they had to start by identifying themselves with "the consecrated formula, 'we who carry the King's excrement on our heads.'" (p.27)

And the young Pol Pot frequently got his crank yanked by bored concubines, who would go that far but wouldn't let him plow the Sacred Furrow. (This is where the fine old expression "Plow Tease" originated.)

Now I'm no fan of crazy Commie dictatorships, but it occurs to me that life in Cambodia was just one damn thing after another. First you're getting all jazzed up about maybe plowing some furrow, then you have to sit around with the King's poop on your head (symbolically), and then you get toyed with by concubines.

[Ramtin · Rating 4 out of 5]

#پل_پوت
#بيژن_اشتري
دنبال علوفه گشتن، كه در سال نخست حكمراني خمرهاي سرخ به بسياري از روستاييان كمك كرده بود كه از گرسنگي نميرند، حالا عملي فردگرايانه شناخته و محكوم مي شد.
رژيم اعلام كرد كه از اين پس هيچ كس حق ندارد در جنگل و دشت دنبال علوفه بگردد، زيرا اين عمل منجر به ان مي شود كه فرد كمي بيش از ديگران داشته باشد.
مقامات محلي، با استدلال مشابه، حاضر نشدند به روستاييان اجازه ي ماهيگيري يا شكار ميمون و گراز را بدهند.

در سال ١٩٧٥ مرحله بعدي انقلاب سوسياليستي در دستور كار قرار گرفت.
به اين ترتيب در هر ناحيه روستاهاي متعددي به هم وصل شدند تا يك تعاوني بزرگ واحد را كه شامل پانصد تا هزار خانوار مي شد تشكيل دهند.
همزمان اشپزخانه هاي كموني برپا شد.
در عمل ، اين " واحدهاي تغذيه"به معناي ان بود كه هر خانواده اي بايد ظرف و ظروف و ديگر لوازم پخت و پزش را تحويل كمون بدهد و فقط يك كتري براي جوشاندن اب ويك قاشق به ازاي هر عضو خانواده را پيش خود نگه دارد.

[Michael Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought a hardcover copy of this book at a bargain bookstore in my home city of Quezon in the Philippines for just the equivalent of just 4 dollars. This is a sad book, as it narrates the inhumanity of the Khmer Rouge, probably the most inhumane of the communists in history. Under Pol Pot, Cambodia became a slave state and a huge killing field, like North Korea today. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are at par with Mao, Stalin, and the Kims of North Korea. I hope they are all burning in hell.

[Bro_Pair أعرف · Rating 5 out of 5]

An admirably solid book about one of the most bewildering stories of the twentieth century. I was never a fan of Lewis Carroll as a kid; "Alice in Wonderland" always scared me. This books inspired the same fear in me. I don't think I've ever been through a looking glass and found myself in a place as brutish and, well - insane as the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. Short is a good writer; his former career as a BBC journalist is apparent, in his unadorned prose, mistrust of simple narratives, and command of facts and characters. And most crucially, he largely does not attempt to produce a grand explanation for the eminently bizarre ideology and policies of Pol Pot; he doesn't really know, we don't either, and Pol Pot, nee Saloth Sar, never really knew, anyway.

What kind of a regime abolishes whole concepts, like "money" or "cities" or even "names"? Orwell shows his age to me now (read "Shooting an Elephant" for his truly malevolent racist colonizer's self-pity) but the Khmer Rouge seem to have distilled the most vicious drippings of 1984. Beyond Short's superb research, as well as his excellent narrative structure, he provides ample historical context for the tragedy of 1975-1978. While these may have been the three *worst* years of Cambodian history, it quickly becomes apparent many of the preceding and succeeding years were little better. Indeed, the canny, ruthless, histrionic King Sihanouk almost steals the book, like some good character actor in a bit movie part. Like J.T. Walsh, he's an intriguing heavy with a weird charm.

If the book has a message, I think it's one that is going to be difficult for most people to digest: we don't really know why we do what we do, and our capacity for remorseless evil is greater than we would like to imagine - more influenced by circumstance than we'd care to admit. The Khmer Rouge are the most inept Marxists in human history, barely able to understand basic concepts like class consciousness, or even what the proletariat is. It was not these precepts that swept them to power, nor even served as the engine behind the Tuol Sleng torture center.

The fact is, the Khmer Rouge was a bizarre nightmare, but one brought to fruition by many makers. The horrifying U.S. bombardment of eastern Cambodia is perhaps the most striking impetus for the Khmer Rouge's blistering rise to power. The U.S., France, Vietnam, China, the USSR, Thailand - all of these country's elites facilitated the rise of the Khmer Rouge, and in the case of China and America, coddled the exiled Pol Pot throughout the eighties, even after the full horror of the killing fields was all too apparent. The next time someone tells you about Reagan the Democratic Hero (TM), make sure they know: under his watch, we kept the fat and happy mass murderers of millions well-armed through Thai interlocutors. All because we and the Khmer Rouge shared one longtime enemy: Vietnam.

Short often essentializes the Khmer as violent, a disturbing theme throughout the book. It's not a convincing argument, anymore than it would be to call Germans or Palestinians irredeemably, culturally-ingrained killers. He tempers this argument in the closing pages of the book, and at least offers one compelling idea in support of a uniquely Cambodian quality behind the killing fields: it cannot have been easy to see the ruins of the Angkor Wat, center of an entire that controlled Southeast Asia, and now you were a small fish, prey to the whims of China, Vietnam, Thailand, and now, the U.S. and USSR.

As for Pol Pot himself? Never has the "banality of evil" been more apparent. He barely figures even in his own life story. A chilling coda - no witnesses can attest to ever seeing him lose his temper. Just smiling a trademark, toothy smile, no matter the subject.

[Padg · Rating 5 out of 5]

rip pol pot you would have loved tik tok and uber eats

this book might not satisfy those wanting to psychoanalyse pol pot (or similar). and that’s
fine.
ultimately this is an extremely thorough work which
lays out both the political and material realities which lead to the regime’s ultimate victory, alongside trying to explain the movement’s deviation from marxist beginnings to the ideological soup they eventually became.

short seems to argue that the group’s fusing of theravada buddhism into (misunderstood) marxist thought produced a rabid anti-intellectual, anti-materialist and metaphysical (ultimately anti-marxist) strain of ideology, leading the movement to insist the city folk be peasantified to purge bourgeois thought. it also seems like they were really, genuinely shit at planning, which led to widespread famine, also due to the above obsessions.
he also suggests that the regime’s famous brutality and misanthropism was heavily informed by the viciousness of life in cambodia before, which is still visible in life after. pretty depressing!

the book is rendered even more depressing at the end where, after diplomatically propping up the khmer rouge as government-in-exile for a decade in order to drain soviet and vietnamese resources, the united states dropped them like a hot potato after the cold war and has cynically referred to their “genocidal” rule hereafter. really makes you think and so on…

[Gene Smith]

Dont Buy Philip Shorts Books Read why and what you are funding.

>>>Philip Short has writen Books mostly upon reading other peoples books like
David Chandler. Philip short takes several books sorts them out, gathers
pictures. Philip makes his own theory about culture. I see many men and women
challange him in colleges. Although Philip Short has the right idea's because
how could he not, he read the books of David Chandler. Mr Short makes false
claims. No one can back up his storys. Philip Short picks a time in history that
is hard to chalange. Don't Take philips words to the bank. Where are the recored
interviews of his claims?
> > >
> > > Most of the time philip is chalanged he resorts to "one could only
think it to be" He says amazing thing about others.
> > >
> > > Philip Short says he was fasinated that Pol Pot was allowed in
womens quarters at age 15 and was fondled.
> > >
> > > Philip Short says if a cambona man was not 5'4" high he was killed.
I never heard of such crap. If I was building a army of men to fight for me as
Pol Pot was doing. How could this be possible. Philip Short to me is a fake. To
put together a book on other books he read and come up with his own conclusions.
A former BBC Philip Short. He stumbled on history that has be covered up by its
country. Very difficult to find out facts. I have yet to see any proof that
Philip Short interviewed anyone. Philip has collected pictures tells the story,
and includes his own idea's which could be made up. Not facts of people's
interview.
> > >
> > > All in all Philip Short is good lier and places himself into this
book. "Mao The Life" I see him studder when he is really pressed to his answer.
I thank C-Span for the insight of his interview.
> > >
> > > Philip Short was in Asian country's for other reasons than Mao.
Reason's that soon will be reveal of the true life of Philip Short. He happened
to have a little knowledege from reading books of David Chandler, and other
respectable people. Philip did gain pictures and interviews. All giving to him
by women. Philip Short actully was in cambona after his retirement to take
advatage of poor asian women. While on his adventures he collects the thought of
women and their Memorabilia. He still doing this Today as of April 9, 2011.
> > >
> > > Philip did attened college no doubt. Philip is good in english, and
expresses himself well. He earn a good living most of his carrer as a BBC.
Philip is a excellect speaker, and can speak his way out of anything. Philip has
a weakness. It is the attraction to asian women.
> > >
> > Philip Short being a Former BBC correspondent has givin him the opertunity.
speaking for free to colleges and in interviews in C-Span hoping to promote his
books. He looks like a respectable person, but in fact he is not. Philip's
Video's on the internet gives him the exposure of a rich man. When in fact he is
not. Philip is now using this as a way to lurer women.
> >
> Philip Short is by far not a rich man.
>
> That there is a steady migration of journalists and producers from commercial
radio to the BBC may not come as a surprise to some. What does raise an eyebrow,
even amongst those working in the industry, is the marked lack of parity in
salaries. Saul earned £13,000 a year when he left Rock FM in 2001 to join a
local BBC station in Yorkshire, where his salary jumped to £22,000. With the
agreement of his manager, Saul continued to freelance at Rock FM until 2005,
working eight hours in the newsroom every Sunday, for just £50 a shift.
>
Philip Short is not a rich man. What Women see in internet makes you think he is
rich. Free public speeches. Free College Speakings. Those free speaches are to
promote his book, which most people are not even interested in. Philip had to
fund some of the books cost, as has not recoved the expenses of the books yet. I
am big on the internet too, but I dont boost about it. The fact that Philip
Short gives free lextures on C-Span and in colleges give great exposer. C-Span
has a great host on the web, which means Anything pertaining to C-Span or other
Broadcasters has high rank in searches on the internet. Its still dosen't make
him rich. A women who traded Her loved one for this Philip would a huge mistake.
Philip has no more money than a ordinary man. Women are so fooled by men like is
his demeanor.


In one interview Philip Short says:
Mr. SHORT: The fourth wife, Chiang Ch'ing, he started living with ..... year at
Iowa, which I found very rewarding, and then moved to France. ...
www.booknotes.org/Watch/155775-1/Phil...

It was rewarding because he used her to translate a language, SO he could write a book. Once he published the book he abandon his wife and son.

Titles: Mao, Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare
Category: Non-Fiction
Agent: Veronique Baxter
Film Agent: Nicky Lund

Philip Short was born in Bristol in 1945 and was educated at Cambridge
University.

He became a journalist and worked for the BBC for 25 years as a foreign
correspondent, contemplating the lunacies of politics in many different cultures
from Sihanouk to Brezhnev and Clinton to Deng Xiaoping.

In 1997 he finished his final stint as BBC Washington correspondent and spent a
year teaching journalism at the University of Iowa. He lives in Provence with
his wife and son.

Now Philip Short has found a new Woman Ethel Daguyo. I guess he intenteds to write a book in philippines, and needs her to translate so he can conduct interviews. Mr Short will get her pregnate and after he publish his book Ethel will be the 5 wife he took advatage of. Mr Short Funded Ethel money for sex in webcam. The funds were made through Western Union which Mr. Short cannot denie, Transaction #. Mr Short also has archives that can be furnished of his Chat to Ethel in her webcam. He saw her for 3 weeks and HE went out of his mind. He flew to philippines and took advatage of her for 2 months. Taking her to hotels visiting all the island. I have the interary of their trip. Search Googel Ethel Daguyo and see what he saw in webcam. Than you will see what kind of man is Philip Short. Dont buy his books and help him fund these terrible acts agaist women.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this biography was brilliant and would call it a must read for anyone interested in the Vietnam imbroglio. Here is what the Kirkus review said it was first published:

"He was very likeable, a really nice person. He was friendly, and everything he said seemed very sensible.” But he was also one of history’s most accomplished mass murderers, as this portrait shows.

"The man born Saloth Sâr in 1925 was something of an accidental communist, suggests former Beijing BBC correspondent Short (Mao: A Life, 2000). As a young foreign-exchange student in 1950 Paris, Sâr had the chance to go camping for a month in Switzerland but, unable to afford the $70 fee, instead took a free work-study trip to Yugoslavia. A revolutionary was thus born, though it appears that Sâr was pushed hard to the left by the intransigent, newly installed Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who suppressed the democratic reform movements of the time. As a guerrilla living among the Montagnard people in Cambodia’s eastern highlands, Sâr slowly elaborated a city-dweller–hating ideology that, Short writes, would form the basis of a modern slave state: farmers outside the zone of urban corruption were the vanguard of a nativist revolutionary movement; urbanites were first in line to be imprisoned and executed. He adopted his new name (the Pols had been royal slaves) in 1970, the year the American invasion of Cambodia swelled the ranks of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot’s peasant cadres drove the Americans away and, once the foreigners were gone, turned their weapons on their own people—often, Short writes, cannibalizing their victims. As many as 1.5 million Cambodians died from 1975 to 1978, when a Vietnamese invasion ended the terror. (Pol fled, dying 20 years later, still “chillingly unrepentant.”) Yet, Short argues, recent attempts to try the surviving Khmer Rouge leadership for genocide are legally inexact and in all events seem intended to disguise America’s role in the bloodbath, as well as the involvement of still-powerful figures like Sihanouk, who only recently abdicated.

"A superbly wrought, richly nuanced study in evil, though more likely to attract discussion for its controversial conclusion than its careful rendering of its murderous subject."

[Babak Fakhamzadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who hasn't seen The Killing Fields, the Hollywood hit about atrocities in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge rule.
In the book's introduction, Short shows that Cambodia's killings is not only comparable to Rwanda's or Germany's, but maybe even worse, in a way, as the killings were directed at the, ethnically, same people who perpetrated the killings. The fact that, technically, therefore, the killings were not a genocide also makes them different from comparable atrocities in recent history. Pop Pot and his minions were out to enslave a population, not kill it. The dying thousands (estimates go up to 2 million) were like an inconvenient side effect.

Short puts a lot of actors on the stage, practically all with names I had to struggle with. That, combined with the lesser well known historical backdrop of South East Asia, makes the story a bit hard to follow at times. That said, Short has put down a strikingly immersive and surprisingly human portrait of yet another man who became a monster, even though Pol Pot is more accurately 'only' a major player in the book, not necessarily the central subject.

One thing I found surprising was that Pol Pot, in his early years, wasn't of the revolutionary type at all, but only slowly drifted to more radical actions and views.

The author makes a point of non-Marxist style of the Cambodian 'communist' movement. For Marx, it was the industrial proletariat who represented progress, development, which was required for the revolution; their class inequality, their economically bad position, being the ultimate driver for a workers' revolution.
In Cambodia, with the absence of a working class, the substitute became the only available badly educated group of people, with little access to modern amenities, the peasantry. They were, ideologically, put in the place of the proletariat. Meanwhile, the class struggle was replaced by a mental struggle, where the improvement of the 'self', not the goal of economic gain, was positioned as the highest achievement.
Needless to say, a system with a vague definition for 'class struggle' is extremely open to abuse. Although obviously with totally different objectives, the Cambodian revolution was put forward as a communist revolution, extolling the virtues of the peasantry. And, in fact, because the Cambodian workers party, the precursor to the Cambodian communist party, was so out of touch with the actual but tiny working class, the workers, out of fear and perceived risk, were quickly labeled as traitors, potential liabilities, completely removing the possibility of the 'communists' using the workers as the vanguard of their future revolution.

Now, Cambodia is still very much struggling with its past and although not quite a failed state, also not at the forefront of development. A lot of that, but by no means all, is the result of Khmer Rouge influence, the struggle leading to three years of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975 and 1978, followed by nearly 20 years of war between Cambodia and Vietnam. A war which evolved into a proxy war between the Soviets, backing Vietnam, and the Chinese, in secret supported by the Americans, backing Cambodia.

Interesting fact: Buddhist monks are not allowed to eat between midday and sunrise the following morning.

[Meharo Bettison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totalitarian movements fascinate me. Whether they be on the right or the left, I am intrigued by their ideologies and how they are able to rise from obscurity into positions of political power. The Khmer Rouge are no exception.

Pol Pot and many of his cohorts came from upper-middle class backgrounds, an interesting fact considering the Khmer Rouge's affinity for the poorest of peasants. It was interesting reading about Pol's early life in French Cambodia. The author Philip Short asserts Vichy France's romanticizing of rural life may have had an effect on the young Khmer Rouge leaders. I wouldn't put it past them. Short writes that Maoism and Stalinism played their role in shaping Khmer Rouge ideology, but that the movement was very much its own beast. He says that the Khmer Rouge's character was Cambodian at its core and that it owed some its ideals to the Buddhism it worked so hard to destroy.

I think Short's opinions on the origins of Khmer Rouge ideology hold weight, although I am hesitant to subscribe to them completely. According to Professor Ben Kiernan of Yale, Short "opens with a faulty (pronunciation) guide to Khmer" and mistakes "Cambodia's national fish paste dish" for a "Vietnamese condiment". Although unrelated to Khmer Rouge ideology, these apparent errors make me question Short's views about them. I would have to read other books and look at other sources on the subject to make a final judgement on his ideas.

I do agree with Short that the evil inflicted on Cambodia is not genocide. The Khmer Rouge never wanted to destroy a particular ethnic group. Instead their goal was absolute conformity. The closest the Khmer Rouge ever came to endorsing genocide was when they announced Cambodia could murder all 50 million Vietnamese with only 2 million Cambodian soldiers. This, of course, was a pipe dream and I'm sure the Khmer Rouge leaders knew it.

All in all, the book is pretty good, and reading it was both horrifying and fascinating and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about the three years of terror the Khmer Rouge inflicted on their country.

[Nick Black]

gave up on this one about 25% of the way through. vietnam was supporting some leftist rebels, the king had abdicated and was trying to get the support of the leftist rebels, there were some other rebels that didn't seem to like anyone and, while i know it makes me sound provincial, everyone's name sounded like a different type of cough. once fifty characters were involved, i'd lost all track, and we know how this story ends: the communists kill in the name of ideology, then the communists kill through incompetence, then the communists kill one another, and eventually 20% of the cambodian population is starved or beaten to death with little purpose other than a Dead Kennedys all-time classic banger. POL! POT! POL! POT! POL! POT!

recommended for anyone who needs know the details of 20th century cambodian political history.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew! I am finally finished with this tome! I'm not much of a history buff, but I'm trying to remedy that. If you are very interested in Cambodia during the time of Pol Pot, read this book! Philip Short really helped me understand the vastly different mindset of the Cambodian people and how this atrocity happened. It still seems incomprehensible to me. Good book with lots and lots of information (450 pages)!

[kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

way way too much information for me. excellent pics of people in black pyjamas.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this surprisingly dry and disjointed. Not nearly as good as Short's Mao book, which is really excellent.