About book When The War Was Over: Cambodia And The Khmer Rouge Revolution (1998)
I have read numerous books about the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia, and studied the history and politics of Southeast Asia in the 1950'-70's, and found Becker's work in this text to be one of the definitive volumes of journalism and academic research ever written concerning this subject. As a correspondent for the Washington Post in the 70's, Becker closely followed the situation in SE Asia, becoming one of only two American journalists who visited Democratic Kampuchea immediately before it's fall to the Vietnamese in January 1979. She has an expansive breadth of knowledge and concern for the country of Cambodia. As is the case with most histories, Becker dives into the background of the formation of the KR first, explaining the advent of communist parties in SE Asia following WWII and the defeat of the French colonialists. The reader is moved along at a very approachable pace concerning the development of revolution in Vietnam and Cambodia (two movements which are inextricably linked) and the demise of the bungling American war policy in the region. We witness the fall of the incapable and corrupt Lon Nol puppet regime in an increasingly starving Phnom Penh, and the rise and encroachment of the militaristic socialism of the KR. Becker proceeds to describe the ensuing KR transformation of the country into one large prison camp with a both a journalistic and academic eye. She presents the familiar stories of and refugees and survivors combined with her own journalistic approach to exhaustive research. The narrative goes on to portray the growing, aggressive, maniacal paranoia of the KR leaders, which eventually leads them into provoking a suicidal war with longtime rival Vietnam.Written in 1986, this work does not offer much information about the time following the fall of the KR, but that is not the intention. And there are parts, especially during the final few chapters, when some points are mentioned in redundancy, almost seeming like they have been added in subsequent editions without much regard for the overall continuity of the text. However, on the whole this is a must read book for any serious student of the history of communist Cambodia and students of the larger topic of the evolution of communism in Asia in the last half of the 20th Century.
This book does an excellent job of detailing the events that occurred from a foreigner looking at the events of the Khmer Rouge. I don't think it should be used alone though. There are other books that do a better job of telling this story from the point of view of those who lived it, in the context of the opinions of the actual time. One of the things that bothered me was the depiction of Tiananmen Square. This showed a lack of understanding of the 9 months that led to the actual event; and suggests to me that the author perhaps may have certain biases. While I think some governments are truly evil, it's very hard to change or figure out what went wrong if you paint each government so black and white. I do think she didn't do this in her depiction of the Vietnamese or Cambodia as much as was done with foreign affairs surrounding what happened with these nations.I would say that relative to many books that attempt to recant history, this book was very engaging. I definitely enjoyed reading the work; which was expertly written. If I felt I could trust the author more, I would have given 5 stars.
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I find it impossible to rate this book on Goodreads' scale. Was it well-written? Very much so. But did I like it? I can't say that I did; this book was emotionally very difficult to read. Becker doesn't flinch from the brutality and horror perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime. The interviews in particular are heartrending and chilling. While I highly recommend When the War Was Over for researchers and scholars, and for those interested in how a society can be turned upside down almost overnight, I advise those with a tender heart or a weak stomach to pass.
—The Bookwyrm's Hoard
It's hard to overstate how fascinating - and, at times, sickening - this book was. The author gives a good overview of the origins of modern Cambodian nationalism, and ties that in to the origins of the Khmer Rouge. Then she shows how the Khmer Rouge isolated themselves and persuaded themselves into a self-destructive paranoid frenzy. And then we - the United States - supported the Khmer Rouge once they lost power, because China thought it was a good idea, and once you threw in a bunch of shitty Cold War logic, it added up to the U.S. supporting mass murderers in order to get back at the Vietnamese for fighting against our troops and our regime. Jesus, this shit is fucked up.
—Matthew
I found the subtitle a little misleading. I expected more of an oral history told from the point of view of survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime. There was some of this, but also a lot of background info on ancient and modern Cambodia, a long section on Vietnam from the fall of Saigon until the invasion of Cambodia, some material pulled from the records of the infamous Tuol Sleng Security Prison, and a personal account of the author's two week "Potemkin Village" style tour of "Democratic Kampuchea".Apart from the Vietnam section, which I thought could have been much shorter, this was an engrossing read, and timely in light of the trials of the Khmer Rouge leadership, which have only just begun in 2009, more than 30 years after the genocide took place.
—Joe
