Between 1975 and 1979, the Communist Party of Kampuchea fundamentally transformed the social, economic, political, and natural landscape of Cambodia. During this time, as many as two million Cambodians died from exposure,disease, and starvation, or were executed at the hands of the party.
This is a true account of what the author experienced when the Khmer Rouge revolutionary forces under Pol Pot took control of Cambodia in 1975. Swept from their industrious life of learning and enterprise in Phnom Penh, the Ky family was driven, along with millions of others, into the Cambodian countryside to fulfill Pol Pot's vision of a Communist, agrarian society.
On December 25, 1978, the armed forces of Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia. That event marked a turning point in the first and only extended war fought between two communist regimes. The Vietnamese forced out Pol Pot’s Khmers Rouge regime from its seat of power in Phnom Penh, but the ensuing war was a major source of international tension throughout the last decade of the Cold War.
How did Pol Pot, a tyrant comparable to Hitler and Stalin in his brutality and contempt for human life, rise to power? This authoritative book explores what happened in Cambodia from 1930 to 1975, tracing the origins and trajectory of the Cambodian Communist movement and setting the ascension of Pol Pot's genocidal regime in the context of the conflict between colonialism and nationalism.
You have allowed cookies to be placed on your computer. This decision can be reversed.