Genocide in Cambodia

This clear and concise volume provides a timely overview of Cambodia, a small but increasingly visible Southeast Asian nation. Hailed by the Journal of Asian Studies as an "original contribution, superior to any other existing work, " the third edition of this acclaimed text has been completely revised and updated to include all-new material examining the death of Pol Pot and the region's continuing rivalry for political power. In addition, Chandler examines the unstable but influential career of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the bloody reign of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, and the relative calm that followed the Vietnamese invasion of 1979. This comprehensive general description and analysis of Cambodia will illuminate -- for specialists and general readers alike -- the history and contemporary politics of a country long misunderstood.

This is an account of a country at war and of a people consigned to the role of pawn in world politics. Haas provides detailed scholarly reassessment of the causes of the Cambodian tragedy--how Cambodia became an arena for superpower conflict. The volume vindicates Vietnam's role in the Cambodian conflict and reveals the treachery of U.S. foreign policy toward Cambodia. Haas' analysis entails a study in comparative foreign policies, an exercise that has theoretical merit for political scientists in search of paradigms of political behavior. Much of the information in the book is based on Haas' recent interviews with 100 key international figures and on primary documents.

"The Khmer Rouge terror constitutes one of the most horrific instances of mass murder in the twentieth century, and Chandler has immersed himself in a unique and largely unexplored collection of primary sources from hell. This will be a very important and enduring work. . . . Moreover, no scholar is better situated to undertake this project than David Chandler."--Craig Etcheson, Director, Cambodian Genocide Project, Yale University

"A truly impressive book that clearly transcends the realm of Cambodian and South Asian studies. Not only has Chandler worked through a massive amount of material, he has also situated his analysis within a knowledge of Khmer history that is without equal."--Charles Keyes, University of Washington

Focusing on the twentieth century, this collection of essays by leading international experts offers an up-to-date, comprehensive history and analysis of multiple cases of genocide and genocidal acts. The book contains studies of the Armenian genocide; the victims of Stalinist terror; the Holocaust; and Imperial Japan. Contributors explore colonialism and address the fate of the indigenous peoples in Africa, North America, and Australia. In addition, extensive coverage of the post-1945 period includes the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, Bali, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, East Timor, and Guatemala. Robert Gellately is Professor and Strassler Family Chair for the Study of Holocaust History at Clark University, where he teaches a variety of courses in modern German history, modern European history and the history of the Holocaust with a concentration on the study of Nazi Germany and the Gestapo. In Backing Hitler (Oxford, 2001), Gellately uses new evidence to demolish long-held beliefs about what ordinary Germans knew of the concentration camps. His internationally acclaimed book, The Gestapo and German Society (Oxford, 1990) challenges conventional concepts of the Gestapo and daily life in Nazi Germany. He has won numerous fellowships, and awards, most recently from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. Ben Kiernan is A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University and Convenor of the Yale East Timor Project. Kiernan is the author of The Pol Pot Regime (Yale, 1996), How Pol Pot Came to Power (Verso Books, 1985) and three other works and over a hundred scholarly articles on Southeast Asia and the history of genocide. Choice called him "the most knowledgeable observer of Cambodia anywhere in the Western world." Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge "indicted" and then "sentenced" him as an "arch war criminal." Kiernan is a member of the Editorial Boards of Human Rights Review, the Journal of Human Rights, and the Journal of Genocide Research. He is currently writing a global history of genocide since 1500.

This inter-disciplinary volume demonstrates, from a range of perspectives, the complex cultural work and struggles over meaning that lie at the heart of what we call memory.In the last decade, a focus on memory in the human sciences has encouraged new approaches to the study of the past. As the humanities and social sciences have put into question their own claims to objectivity, authority and universality, memory has appeared to offer a way of engaging with knowledge of the past as inevitably partial, subjective and local. At the same time, memory and memorial practices have become sites of contestation, and the politics of memory are increasingly prominent.

"Fresh, useful, and engaging. This timely book reflects new research and important critical perspectives on the role of social science and the response of anthropology to human suffering."--Richard Pierre Claude, Founding Editor of "Human Rights Quarterly

"Many peoples of the world, including the Mayans in Guatemala, have been devastated and destroyed by genocide. Over many years these horrors remained only in the hearts and memory of the victims. The testimonies of the survivors who had the courage to denounce these crimes are making a contribution to scientific research. In "Annihilating Difference, anthropologists grapple with an urgent public issue, taking new points of view that could help understand the magnitude of past atrocities and develop strategies to prevent future massacres in the heart of humanity."--Rigoberta Menchu Tum, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate

"This volume--a collection of writings on genocide from the perspective of anthropology-seeks a deeper understanding of our era's most heinous crime. It asks not only what happened but why it happened. It seeks not simply to describe but to explain. And in offering an explanation of this horrendous social malady, it points the direction for a possible cure."--Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, from the Foreword

"This volume ranges far and wide across centuries and cultures to present fascinating perspectives on the phenomenon of genocide. It is a new venture for anthropologists, whose insights will be useful to us all and who connect their scholarship to profound moral concerns."--Howard Zinn, author of "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

""Annihilating Difference is an anthropologicalcollection that warrants the attention of non-anthropologists. It simultaneously adds to the growing body of knowledge about genocide and provides a revealing glimpse into what anthropologists are studying and how they are studyi

This provocative analysis of U.S. policy toward Cambodia illuminates issues that remain especially pertinent in the aftermath of the Cold War. Haas examines U.S. failures in Cambodia and traces them to a combination of an idealistic desire to remake the world in the American democratic image, a belief in U.S. omnipotence, and the realpolitik tradition of using power to advance U.S. interests whenever they seem to be threatened. Formulating a model of international relations based on democratic principles, Haas urges reflection on the lessons of Cambodia as policies are developed for the 1990s.