This New York Times reporter has won a Pulitzer Prize award for his reports on the boat people in the late seventies. The present book is a good review of postwar Vietnam from the reeducation camps, the differences between Saigon and Hanoi, the arrogance of the communists to the hope for a better future under the "doi moi" policy.

His interviews with Can Giao, a nationalist who has been imprisoned 21 times by all the different regimes, Duong Thu Huong (Paradise of the Blind), and Bao Ninh (The sorrow of war) are enlightening. All these people who are either former communists or sympathizers are presently not very happy with the communist regime. The author also believes that the 1975 diaspora represents the "severest judgment the Vietnamese had expressed about the communist regime".

Reading this book is a good way to get to know Cambodia's turbulent history. Written by a man who met many of the "big players" in the story, I found it very interesting. My only criticism is that there are no photos of the characters represented in Mr. Kamm's book.

This book is very readable and gives an overview of the history of this small violent country in the last thirty years. The book details the main culprits as the the U.S., Soviet Union, Vietnam, Red China, and France as the intriquers who eventually pushed this country into the policies resulting in the genocide of its people. Unlike previous reviewers, I thought Kamm was trying to put his own personal view on what happened in Cambodia. He knew the players in this drama, so why not draw what he feels is an accurate portrait of them. I liked the book. The only negative is that Kamm has some problems with the English language and this showed in the reading. Kamm escaped Nazi Germany, not France as a previous reviewer has stated.

Henry Kamm's book provides a good overall view of events in Cambodia of the last thirty years. If you are looking for an in depth account of the Khmer Rouge genocide, look elsewhere. Kamm's book covers the events that led up to the Khmer Rouge takeover, covers their brief rule and their attempts to regain power and finally the downfall of Pol Pot. Along the way Kamm describes the tragedy of a poor country trying overcome the horrors inflicted upon it by its own people. A very well written and readable book by an author who knows his subject well.