eBooks

San Tran Croucher’s earliest memories are of fleeing ethnic attacks in her Vietnamese village, only to be later tortured in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.

One of the most devastating periods in twentieth-century history was the rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge over Cambodia. From April 1975 to the beginning of the Vietnamese occupation in late December 1978, the country underwent perhaps the most violent and far-reaching of all modern revolutions. These six essays search for what can be explained in the ultimately inexplicable evils perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. Accompanying them is a photo essay that provides shocking visual evidence of the tragedy of Cambodia's autogenocide.

In Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land, former Southeast Asia correspondent for the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Kamm gives a clear and definitive history of contemporary Cambodia from 1970 to the present. For more than thirty years, Kamm's high-level political and military connections allowed him unparalleled access to the leaders who shaped Cambodia into what it is today.

More and more guys are traveling through Southeast Asia than ever before, and Cambodia is becoming one of the main stops along the way. With extremely cheap prices, easy visas, nice tourist attractions, beaches, and some fun nightlife it is easy to see why many backpackers like the place.

The Years of Zero—Coming of Age Under the Khmer Rouge is a survivor’s account of the Cambodian genocide carried out by Pol Pot’s sadistic and terrifying Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. It follows the author, Seng Ty, from the age of seven as he is plucked from his comfortable, middle-class home in a Phnom Penh suburb, marched along a blistering, black strip of highway into the jungle, and thrust headlong into the unspeakable barbarities of an agricultural labor camp. Seng’s mother was worked to death while his siblings succumbed to starvation.

This book illustrates the limits to the 1990s UNTAC peacekeeping intervention in Cambodia. It demonstrates that such an approach to conflict resolution is flawed and that liberal pluralism is not necessarily a reliable vehicle for heralding change in developing societies.

Tips for visiting Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam

Can you feel it? Your emotions are running away with your heart, which beats wildly at the center of a tug-of-war, balancing fear and joy. The sheer exhilaration of a backpacking adventure is intoxicating, however, fear of the unexpected can derail plans, postpone dreams, or even worse, cancel them.

Concluding the trilogy that started with the bestselling memoir First They Killed My Father, Loung Ung describes her college experience and her first steps into adulthood, revealing her struggle to reconcile with her past while moving forward towards happiness. After the violence of the Khmer Rouge and the difficult assimilation experience of a refugee, Loung’s daily struggle to keep darkness, anger, and depression at bay will finally find two unexpected allies: the empowering call of activism, and the redemptive power of love.

Between 1975 and 1979 the seemingly peaceful nation of Cambodia succumbed to one of the most bloodthirsty revolutions in modern history. Nearly two million people were killed. As head of the Khmer Rouge's secret police, Comrade Duch was responsible for the murder of more than 20,000 of them. Twenty years later, not one member of the Khmer Rouge had been held accountable for what had happened, and Comrade Duch had disappeared.

Sandy beaches, grand Buddhist temples, spicy cuisine, world-class spas, and a rich language--Thailand is unique among Southeast Asian nations and a not-to-be-missed destination. Thais have a deep cultural history and contrasts abound in the country, both geographically and socially.