The Killing Fields

by Christopher Hudson

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0330285130
• ISBN13: 9780330285131
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Pan Books
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A shocking and disturbing tale

The killing fields is a story about war and horror, murder and terror but also about hope and friendship. The story emerges in the early 1970s in war torn Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge are trying to overthrow the american backed government of Lon Nol. The american journalist Sydney Schanberg and his cambodian assistant Dith Pran are covering the advance of the Khmer Rouge towards the capital of Phnom Penh. In 1975 when the rebells finally enter the capital and seize power, the lives of the residents change dramatically. The Khmer Rouge want to impose a stoneage-like agriculture communism and for that purpose they force the whole population to live and work on the countryside and besides they try to kill all educated, upper class and critical people. As the foreigner Schanberg will soon be sent out of Cambodia, for Pran, as a well educated cambodian citizen things soon turn to the worst.What follows is a three year struggle for life. That means Pran has to deny his real identity and pretend having worked his lifetime in the countryside. He will witness murder and the unbelievable behavior of Khmer Rouge soldiers, he will suffer from malnutrition and the loss of friends and relatives and he will fight every day to live and hope for an end of his nightmare.This book shows with the shocking example of Dith Pran, through what hell the cambodian people went under the terror reign of the Khmer Rouge. Furthermore this book provides a lot of background information. Being both journalists, Schanberg and Pran have a lot of knowledge, the average cambodian citizen never had. So the reader learns very precisely about the actions that took place when the Khmer Rouge took power. The reader also learns how it was like being a foreigner amid this turmoil and how the new regime treated them. This book is an example for the fate of the cambodian people and the shocking and disturbing story will help the reader to realize, what actually took place and how the people had to suffer.I can recommend this book to everyone who is interested in Cambodia and South East Asia. But, in particular, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what cruelties happen on earth and how brutal people can actually be.