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.

'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 'The first full biography of the man who led Cambodia into darkness.' - Sue Baker -- Publishing News 20050304 '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 20050301 'Short succeeds in building a complete, compelling portrait of the man' -- Herald 20050709 'A model of research ... an intelligent and compassionate account of the Cambodian nightmare' -- Spectator '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 'Comprehensive and eloquent biography of a monster' -- Literary Review 'Short unerringly broadens the inquiry to the point where serious history begins, and serious judgements can be made' -- Financial Times 'Short's brilliantly detailed account is a salutary one' -- Sunday Herald 20041031 'Riveting' -- Scotsman 20041106 'Philip Short has done a spectacularly efficient job of describing what happened, and how' -- Economist 20041106 'Short has created a terrifying narrative of destruction.' -- Daily Telegraph 20041106 'A superb, chilling yet human portrait of a monster' -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph 20041120 'Comprehensive and eloquent biography of a monster' -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph 20041120 'Exhaustive and authoritative' -- Times Literary Supplement 20050401 'The result is a searching account' -- Sunday Times 20050814

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.