Murder of a Gentle Land: The Untold Story of a Communist Genocide in Cambodia

by John Daniel Barron, Anthony Paul

What transpired in Cambodia constitutes one of the great, terrifying stories of our time. Beginning when the Communists took over the country in April 1975, a mindless terror emptied the cities and turned the villages, fields and jungles into charnel houses. The numbers of dead were staggering -- these were not executions, they constituted genocide. Yet no protest was made; indeed the world knows almost nothing of what has happened. But there are, in fact, many people who carry the bitter truth forever in their hearts -- the more than twenty-six thousand Cambodians who managed to escape. They saw a new holocaust; this is their story, told as they witnessed it, the deaths of their own beloved family members, and the murder of a lovely land. In the current volume this heretofore untold story has been brilliantly documented and narrated by two Reader's Digest editors-John Barron, author of KGB, and Anthony Paul, the magazine's Far Eastern specialist. They and a Digest research team interviewed nearly three hundred eyewitnesses to the events in Cambodia, refugees who represented a cross section of Cambodian society. To document and provide for independent verification of their findings, the authors taped and had translated transcripts made of more than one hundred fifty of their interviews. Digest researchers also studied transcripts of Radio Phnom Penh broadcasts and public statement by Cambodian leaders, interviewed foreigners who were in Cambodia when the country fell to the Communists, and assembled worldwide press reportage concerning Cambodia. The sources of all statements in the book are identified in extensive chapter notes.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another heavy, heart-breaking read on the Cambodian Communist genocide. Interesting to read a book written while events in Cambodia were still in progress (published in 1977 about halfway through Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia). I had no idea Reader's Digest used to do actual investigative journalism, and I was shocked by how accurate it was in relation to details later learned after the fall of Communism. Read like a novel more than nonfiction.

[Bryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had only heard of the Khmer Rouge before this book. The extent of their atrocities were clearly described in this book including biographical accounts of life in the work camps and attempts to escape to neighboring countries.
It's inconceivable that a group like the Khmer Rouge was allowed into power of a sovereign nation, and this was in the 1970s.