Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare - Rilegato

Short, Philip

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0719565685 ISBN 13: 9780719565687

Casa editrice: John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2004

Riassunto

Pol Pot was an idealistic, reclusive figure with great charisma and personal charm. He initiated a revolution whose radical egalitarianism exceeded any other in history. But in the process, his country descended into madness and his name became a byword for oppression.In the three-and-a-half years of his rule in Cambodia, more than a million people, a fifth of Cambodia's population, were executed or died from hunger and disease. A supposedly gentle, carefree land of slumbering temples and smiling peasants became a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which absolute obedience was enforced on the 'killing fields'. Philip Short has spent four years travelling the length and breadth of Cambodia, interviewing surviving leaders of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge movement and sifting through previously closed archives from China, Russia and Vietnam, as well as Cambodia itself. Here, the former Khmer Rouge Head of State, Pol's brother-in-law and scores of lesser figures speak for the first time at length about their beliefs and motives, as Philip Short traces Pol Pot's life from altruistic youth to become one of the twentieth century's most egregious political monsters.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

A model of research ... an intelligent and compassionate account of the Cambodian nightmare (Spectator)

His weighty book, which is as much a history of modern Cambodia as a biography of the man who shaped it, [is written with] with great discretion and sensitivity ... As well as a model of research, this is an intelligent and compassionate account of the Cambodian nightmare. (The Spectator)

An extraordinary and brilliant book ... Like a clever and determined detective, Short has exposed the secrets, knitting together a story which it once seemed would never be told. The result is horrifying, but it must be read. (Scotland on Sunday)

Like a clever and determined detective, Short has exposed the secrets ... The result is horrifying, but it must be read (Scotland on Sunday)

Brings clear thinking to the big questions of blame (Sunday Times)

'The first full biography of the man who led Cambodia into darkness.' - Sue Baker (Publishing News)

Comprehensive and eloquent biography of a monster (Literary Review)

Short has written the definitive account of the nightmarish regime of 1975-1978, responsible for the deaths of some 1.5 million Cambodians. (Contemporary Review)

Short succeeds in building a complete, compelling portrait of the man (Herald)

Short unerringly broadens the inquiry to the point where serious history begins, and serious judgements can be made (Financial Times)

L'autore:

Philip Short was for many years a foreign correspondent for the BBC, and now lives and writes in southern France. He first encountered Pol Pot in Beijing in 1977. His last book, Mao: A Life, has been hailed as the definitive biography of the founder of modern China.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0719565685
• ISBN 13: 9780719565687
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 672