eBooks

Temples and killing fields, mighty rivers and impenetrable forests, a past filled with glory and decline Cambodia is a land of contrasts. A millennia ago it was an empire at the height of its power, building the vast temple complexes of Angkor. Now, a thousand years later, ravaged by conflict and a genocidal civil war, Cambodia finds itself struggling with democracy, beset by corruption and on the lowest end of the global spectrum of economic wealth.

International intervention liberated Cambodia from pariah state status in the early 1990s and laid the foundations for more peaceful, representative rule. Yet the country's social indicators and the integrity of its political institutions declined rapidly within a few short years, while inequality grew dramatically. Conducting an unflinching investigation into these developments, Sophal Ear reveals the pernicious effects of aid dependence and its perversion of Cambodian democracy.

While the United States battled Vietnamese Communists in the 1960s and 1970s, in neighboring Cambodia dictator Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge declared war on their own people, enslaving and slaughtering anybody who disagreed with them. Sichan Siv knew he would soon be a target—ending up, perhaps, as one of the millions of anonymous human skeletons buried in his nation's Killing Fields—so he heeded his mother's pleas and ran.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail is one of the greatest feats of military engineering in history. But since the end of the Vietnam War much of this vast transport network has been reclaimed by jungle, while remaining sections are littered with a deadly legacy of unexploded bombs.

Originally published in 1951, it is said that A Dragon Apparent inspired Graham Greene to go to Vietnam and write The Quiet American. Norman Lewis traveled in Indo-China during the precarious last years of the French colonial regime. Much of the charm and grandeur of the ancient native civilizations survived until the devastation of the Vietnam War.

The Chronicle of a People's War: The Military and Strategic History of the Cambodian Civil War, 1979-1991 narrates the strategic and military history of the Cambodian Civil War, especially the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), from when it deposed the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 until the political settlement in 1991.

A single woman in her sixties travels to Cambodia to set up a dried fruit factory - a project to provide landmine survivors with an income and hope for the future. Overcoming official corruption, cultural prejudice and minimal financial support, her inspirational story will challenge everyone who thinks they are too broken or too old to make an impact for God in this world.

Behind the Facade examines the question of why authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia bother holding elections. Using comprehensive case studies of Cambodia, Myanmar, and Singapore, Lee Morgenbesser argues that elections allow authoritarian regimes to collect information, pursue legitimacy, manage political elites, and sustain neopatrimonial domination.

Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring is your passport to having big experiences on a small budget, offering the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, what hidden discoveries await you and how to optimise your budget for an extended continental trip. Watch the sun rise over Cambodia’s temples of Angkor; hang out, hit the beach and learn to cook in Vietnam’s cosmopolitan, buzzing Hoi An; and kayak around the turquoise waters of Laos’ Si Phan Don. All with your trusted travel companion.

Grace after Genocide is the first comprehensive ethnography of Cambodian refugees, charting their struggle to transition from life in agrarian Cambodia to survival in post-industrial America, while maintaining their identities as Cambodians.