Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
by Philip Short

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Philip Short
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2005-02-08
ISBN: 0805066624
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Book Reviews of Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)

Book Review: Humans as oxen
Summary: 4 Stars

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John MacRae Books)
This study deserves to be another documented remainder of the practical and , unfortunately , logical consequences of what began as a humanistic idea about equality and sameness and ended in its consequent and tragic equation , cca at least half a billion unmarked graves stretching from the revolutionary France up to the bloodiest of all eras , the 20th century with communisms of different ' denominations '( e.g. stalinism , titoism ,Pol - potism ... ) . If we could dare calculate the percentage of people murdered in a time unit , then Cambodia is probably at the top of the saddest scale imaginable ,as 2 million people , a third of population , were starved and butchered on the infamous killing fields . Mr. Short's analysis is a hard core scientific work which tries to minutely describe and explain the history of Cambodia before the WWII , before the arrival of Khmer Rouges and the creation of the real Hell on Earth in the mid70s, the period of its 'great' leap forward and its quick demise , succeeding perfectly in illustrating the mindset behind Pot Pol and his clique , that was fatally influenced , which Mr Short repeats on numerous occasions , by at that time fashionable , e.g. progressive ideas , which were a) French b) marxist c) nihilistic . All these ideas were combined with the pre-existing Cambodian traditions and psychological mindsets , where violence in its most bizzare and brutal form ( according to one of the interviewees in the book , it was nothing unusual for children ,while swimming in a local river, to find severed human heads floating around , special forms of torture where a torturer is dancing around a helpless victim with a machete before hacking him to pieces and drinking his blood, etc. ) co-exists with the image of the most peaceful people in the world . All these , as well as the opposition against the king , poor management by the colonial master France , senseless interparty bickering, and war in the neighbouring Vietnam were factors that inescapably led to the final stage - red inferno with the secret sect first called Angkar to which virtually everything had to be sacrificed ( not only material objects, cars , tv sets ,etc. ) but specially human , individual characterictics , the very feelings , the soul itself , where the greatest sin was , simply , to have a thought! This study is another document of the 'usefulness'of radical ideas , where it is impossible to remain untouched , and a document which must serve as a perennial warning of how evil a man can be ! It is first and foremost a tribute to all the innocent Cambodians that were massacred en masse because of a psychopatic idea in psychopatic minds .

Summary of 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.

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