Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare
Apr 2007 · Henry Holt and Company
4.6star
9 reviewsreport
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560
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About this ebook
A gripping and definitive portrait of the man who headed one of the most enigmatic and terrifying regimes of modern times
In the three and a half years of Pol Pot's rule, more than a million Cambodians, a fifth of the country's population, were executed or died from hunger. An idealistic and reclusive figure, Pol Pot sought to instill in his people values of moral purity and self-abnegation through a revolution of radical egalitarianism. In the process his country descended into madness, becoming a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which obedience was enforced on the killing fields.
How did a utopian dream of shared prosperity mutate into one of the worst nightmares humanity has ever known? To understand this almost inconceivable mystery, Philip Short explores Pol Pot's life from his early years to his death. Short spent four years traveling throughout Cambodia interviewing the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge movement, many of whom have never spoken before, including Pol Pot's brother-in-law and the former Khmer Rouge head of state. He also sifted through the previously closed archives of China, Russia, Vietnam, and Cambodia itself to trace the fate of one man and the nation that he led into ruin.
This powerful biography reveals that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were not a one-off aberration but instead grew out of a darkness of the soul common to all peoples. Cambodian history and culture combined with intervention from the United States and other nations to set the stage for a disaster whose horrors echo loudly in the troubling events of our world today.
In the three and a half years of Pol Pot's rule, more than a million Cambodians, a fifth of the country's population, were executed or died from hunger. An idealistic and reclusive figure, Pol Pot sought to instill in his people values of moral purity and self-abnegation through a revolution of radical egalitarianism. In the process his country descended into madness, becoming a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which obedience was enforced on the killing fields.
How did a utopian dream of shared prosperity mutate into one of the worst nightmares humanity has ever known? To understand this almost inconceivable mystery, Philip Short explores Pol Pot's life from his early years to his death. Short spent four years traveling throughout Cambodia interviewing the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge movement, many of whom have never spoken before, including Pol Pot's brother-in-law and the former Khmer Rouge head of state. He also sifted through the previously closed archives of China, Russia, Vietnam, and Cambodia itself to trace the fate of one man and the nation that he led into ruin.
This powerful biography reveals that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were not a one-off aberration but instead grew out of a darkness of the soul common to all peoples. Cambodian history and culture combined with intervention from the United States and other nations to set the stage for a disaster whose horrors echo loudly in the troubling events of our world today.
Ratings and reviews
4.6
9 reviews
A Google user
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January 18, 2009
"Pol Pot" is a masterful book that comprehensively documents Pol Pots political life from his studies in Paris, to his down fall in the late 90's at the hands of his disgruntled, primary military leader, Mok.
Philip Short evaluates Pol Pot's rise to power, and his short reign over Cambodia, from an unbiased and authoritative position, he shows the real reasons, from a historically Cambodian perspective, why the atrocities orchestrated under Pol Pot were committed. Short's focus in the book is the political evolution of what culminated into the CPK (Communist Party of Kampuchea), from Pol Pot's early influences during his overseas studies, to the political climate in Cambodia during Pol Pot's youth.
The only point of contention I would note is probably a major one. The whole reason that I (and probably most people) decided to study Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is because of the awful atrocities that were committed by them. And on this point I was very disappointed. Very little attention is focused on the carnage that was perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. Short himself seems shocked and appalled by the horrid acts, but he often fails to elucidate and elaborate for his readers about these things that he most abhors. Short does mention some of the suffering that the general population was subjected to, but only enough to `wet the reader's lips'.
Maybe Short wished to only focus on the politics, which was, by itself, still fascinating, but I was left somewhat discontent and unsatisfied. I will now probably try and find another book which will quench my original `thirst' for the detail of the massacres, something that I wish I didn't have to do, and was addressed properly in this book.
But overall this is a remarkable book that deals with the subject with a `cool head' and from an unbiased position, without slandering and abusing Pol Pot for the acts that he was responsible for. "Pol Pot" is written in a very engaging way, and Short does well to `spice-up' the somewhat boring early days of Pol Pot.
Four Stars
Coiled Steel
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December 2, 2019
Ironically Vietnam brought an end to this monster; when we left Vietnam, and Cambodia to fend for themselves! 😖
Erik Hands
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January 13, 2025
Very informative!
About the author
Philip Short has been a foreign correspondent for The Times (London), The Economist, and the BBC in Uganda, Moscow, China, and Washington, D.C. He is the author of the definitive biography of Mao Tse-tung, and lived in China and Cambodia in the 1970s and early 1980s, where he has returned regularly ever since. He now lives in southern France with his Chinese wife.
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