Particularize Books In Pursuance Of Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
| Original Title: | Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare |
| ISBN: | 0805066624 (ISBN13: 9780805066623) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Kiriyama Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (2005) |
Philip Short
Hardcover | Pages: 537 pages Rating: 3.88 | 1138 Users | 132 Reviews
Describe Appertaining To Books Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
| Title | : | Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books) |
| Author | : | Philip Short |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 537 pages |
| Published | : | 2004 by John Macrae (first published September 5th 2000) |
| Categories | : | History. Biography. Nonfiction. Cultural. Asia. Politics |
Narrative Toward Books Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
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.
Rating Appertaining To Books Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
Ratings: 3.88 From 1138 Users | 132 ReviewsCriticism Appertaining To Books Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
What an amazing work by a clearly talented historian. The access he had to leaders and documents is insane, or maybe he was just patient enough to go through them all. What I loved most about this book was that the way the author put things into context (for example, he compared the killings in Phnom Penh immediately after the invasion to French reprisal killings after WWII to show that they did not differ by % that much), but also did not excuse individual actors. Instead of pointing to one orI 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.
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
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
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
He was the Prime Disciple of Mao, he once sharpened the blade of the Scythe...with warm blood of course, much blood...Whenever I think of Communism Khmer Rouge, those mounds of yellowish, fragmentary and some punctured human skulls bring me a show of kaleidoscope...Communism is a religion, it feeds on human blood, those pits of human corpses, rivers of rotten flesh and those skull mounds are its excrementIf you don't believe this, just go there have a looksee as you can, such place like Camp
I've always been intrigued by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ever since i saw the documentary 'Enemies of the People'. It follows Sambath, whose family was murdered by the regime, interviewing Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's number 2. He interviews him over a period of three years but doesn't reveal the fate of his parents. After gaining his trust Nuon Chea starts to open up and gives accounts of the massacres carried out by the regime. At the end of the documentary, just before Chea is arrested for his war
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