Cambodia 1975–1982

Cambodia 1975–1982 presents a unique and carefully researched analysis of the Democratic Kampuchea regime of Pol Pot and the “Khmer Rouge” (1975–79) and the early years of the People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–89). When it was first published in 1984, the book provided one of the few balanced and reasoned voices in a world shocked by media reports of incredible “Khmer-Rouge” brutality. Now, fifteen years later, the book remains unsurpassed as an original historical document bringing a new interpretation based on the earliest primary sources—interviews with the Khmer people themselves.

Fluent in Khmer, Vickery made extensive inquiries of hundreds of refugees, many of whom he had known in the years before and after the Pol Pot regime. These interviews provide the basis for the book and make it distinctive for its time.

What others are saying

The most comprehensive and definitive political history to date of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, officially known as democratic Kampuchea 1975–1979 . . . Overall a balanced, judicious account.—Choice

In the most careful and searching assessment of Cambodian politics and society since the revolutionary victory in 1975, Vickery . . . sets Pol Pot's disastrous revolutionary experiments of 1975–1979 into their historical and theoretical contexts. Vickery presents a complex and differentiated view of Democratic Kampuchea.—Library Journal