Beyond the Killing Fields: War Writings [Hardcover]

Sydney Schanberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2010

This first-ever anthology of the war reporting and commentary of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sydney Schanberg is drawn from more than four decades of reporting at home and abroad for the New York Times, Newsday, the Village Voice, and various magazines. The centerpiece of the collection is his signature work, “The Death and Life of Dith Pran,” which appeared in the New York Times Magazine. This became the foundation of Roland Joffé’s acclaimed film The Killing Fields (1984), which explored the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia during the late 1970s.

Although Schanberg may be best known for his work on Cambodia, he also reported on the India-Pakistan war that ended Pakistan’s brutal attempt to crush the Bangladesh freedom movement in the 1970s. His striking coverage of the Vietnam conflict recounts Hanoi’s fierce offensive in 1972 that almost succeeded. Years later, citing official documents and other hard evidence that a large number of American POWs were never returned by Hanoi, Schanberg criticized the national press for ignoring these facts and called for Washington to release documents that had been covered up since 1973.

As the media critic for the Village Voice, Schanberg offered a unique and searing viewpoint on Iraq, which he called America’s “strangest war.” His criticism of the Bush administration’s secrecy brings his war reportage into the present and presents a vigorous critique of what he considers a devious and destructive presidency. Beyond the Killing Fields is an important work by one of America’s foremost journalists.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Now in his 70s, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Schanberg looks back on a long career as a war correspondent for the New York Times and offers an anthology of war coverage and commentary, from Vietnam and Cambodia to the war in Iraq, aimed at showing the brutality and senselessness of war. From his reporter’s notebook entries, he describes watching small children die and thinking of his own children back in the U.S., the hasty evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Cambodia in 1975, the surreal calm before the Khmer Rouge moved into Phnom Penh. He includes his tribute to Dith Pran, the Cambodian so instrumental in the Times’ coverage that he was named a correspondent. Schanberg recalls their relationship as colleagues and friends and his profound sadness that while Pran saved his life, he was unable to save Pran’s in return. The final pieces are critiques of the U.S. failure to push Hanoi to return POWs and the cover-up of that failure, including Senator John McCain’s participation, despite his time as a POW. Schanberg’s collection is grim reminder of the brutality of war. --Vanessa Bush

Review

“There is a biblical quality to this story. What you have in this book is a tremendous, bone-chilling piece of eyewitness war correspondence. What makes it truly extraordinary, however—what makes it a transcendent and classic piece of war literature—is the story of the survival of Dith Pran and the deepening affection between two men from different worlds. Caught up in a war in which the vile and inhuman have become commonplace, two men are reborn by discovering the depths of their own humanity. In the end, they have won a personal victory over war itself.”


“I recommend reading this remarkable book all at once, as I did. You’ll learn things. You’ll be fascinated and moved. It puts the reader where the reporter was and leaves you with an indelible picture of war as it is. The past—and the myriad, uncounted noncombatant victims of three wars—are brought back to life. Sydney Schanberg’s writing matches the intensity of the stories he has to tell and makes you feel the hurt. ‘This is what it’s like. Look,’ it says. ‘Don’t look away.’ It’s hard, necessary information.”

“Sydney Schanberg is one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century. His passion for Cambodia is outweighed only by his passion for the truth and for his dear friend and colleague Dith Pran. This book is a chilling historical document that lyrically captures some of the darkest periods in American—and human—history. It is both great journalism and great art."

“A priceless collection of the war journalism of Syd Schanberg. Based in Southeast Asia, he was one of a tiny handful of reporters who remained behind to see the Khmer Rouge take over Phnom Penh and begin the Cambodian genocide. More recently, Schanberg's was among the few voices calling to account two U.S. senators, John McCain and John Kerry, both Vietnam veterans, for manipulating the findings of a special Senate committee to cover up the truth: that the Nixon White House, directed by President Nixon and his war planner, Henry Kissinger, left hundreds of living American POWs behind in the hands of their captors when we evacuated Vietnam. Schanberg's war writings offer lessons of great value in our conduct of today’s wars without end. They remind us at once of bygone standards of journalistic excellence and the depths to which humanity can descend in times of war.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.; 1 edition (March 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597975052
• ISBN-13: 978-1597975056
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #661,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sydney Schanberg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times coverage of the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. But his reporting on Cambodia is largely known from "The Killing Fields," the Academy Award-winning film starring Sam Waterston as Schanberg, which was based on his New York Times article chronicling the search for his captured Cambodian colleague Dith Pran and Pran's escape to freedom in 1979.

After returning from Asia, Schanberg was named NY Times Metropolitan Editor and then became an Op-Ed columnist, writing about New York City. In 1985, Schanberg left The Times and spent nine years as an Op-Ed columnist for New York Newsday. He then worked as head of investigations for APBNews.com and later wrote award-winning press criticism at The Village Voice.

Beyond the Killing Fields (Potomac Books, March 2010) is his first book -- an anthology of his reporting and commentary about wars in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and Iraq.

Please visit the book's website at http://www.beyondthekillingfields.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Face of War Revealed March 31, 2011

By Thomas Veil

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Few journalists have seen as much war as Sydney Schanberg and this overdue collection of his war dispatches is a sobering look at some of the worst conflicts of the 20th century. Schanberg is best known to us as the journalist depicted in The Killing Fields, the classic Roland Joffe film. He emerges here against a broader backdrop of modern conflict, pondering in straightforward prose, the madness of war and the extremes that it brings out in people.

The first section of the book takes us to Cambodia, in the weeks preceding and following the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. Here Schanberg captures the panic and misery of a besieged city, along with the contributing madness of US bombing and Khmer Rouge shelling. His prose helps us to understand the profound weariness that preceded Cambodia's dark age. Also depicted, of course, is his own near-escape from the Khmer Rouge, the terror of Cambodians, and the trauma of his evacuation from the country.

The second section contains the famous "The Death and Life of Dith Pran" - the basis for The Killing Fields. This is an amazing piece of journalism - as evocative in its own way as the film.

I was pleasantly surprised by the third section, which takes Americans to a conflict they know less about: Pakistan's savage suppression of East Pakistan, followed by the liberation of that territory by the Indian Army. Schanberg reported from East Pakistan in 1971, before he went to Southeast Asia, and one can read this section as informing his later approach to Cambodia. Given the tumult and terror that we associate with Pakistan nowadays, this section has a newfound importance, and it was wise of the editor to include it.

The fourth section is collected from Schanberg's tenure in South Vietnam, where he reported on the Easter Offensive. Much material here depicts the near-collapse of ARVN during the spring of 1972, but the best part of this, by far, is a frank discussion of relations between the press corps and the military, and a meditation on the responsibilities of the press during war.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh sections are the shortest in the book. Section Five takes us back to Cambodia during the 1990s and proves a troubling postscript to his earlier discussion of the Khmer Rouge years - Cambodia, then and now, remains mired in repression, and justice has been slow in coming for the victims of the Khmer Rouge. Section Six offers a provocative look at the likely fate of US POWs in Southeast Asia; Schanberg charges the Nixon administration with knowingly abandoning our fighting men in Vietnam and elsewhere. The final section offers more contemporaneous musings, including a touching piece on what motivates a war correspondent.

All told, this is a singular collection, with much to offer to anyone either interested in the Vietnam War, journalism, or war in general. Schanberg writes with an enviable directness and simplicity and lets his stories speak for him - as a correspondent, he showed little interest in writing editorials. Emerging here are frank, often heartrending portraits of war - ones we would do well to consult when we next consider sending in the troops.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great War Reporting Story June 14, 2010

By T. Dith

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is an accurate account story of the war during the Vietnam War that spilled over to Cambodia and Laos. Everybody should read this book if you are interested in it's history and learning about war reporting through journalist experience in the front line.

15 of 31 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Are You Kidding Me?! August 2, 2010

By Alexandre Di Lolli

Format:Hardcover

As the only American journalist to remain behind in Phnom Penh after the city fell to the Khmer Rouge, this is what the author wrote for the The New York Times about the departure of the Americans and the coming regime change: "it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." The Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975 and killed approximately two million people. A dispatch he wrote on April 13, 1975, written from Phnom Penh, ran with the headline "Indochina without Americans: for most, a better life."(!!!)
Schanberg then went on to reject claims that the communist takeover of Cambodia could lead to state-sponsored genocide: "Wars nourish brutality and sadism, and sometimes certain people are executed by the victors but it would be tendentious to forecast such abnormal behavior as a national policy under a Communist government once the war is over."
NY Times Walter Duranty would have been proud of his colleague Schanberg's work! Like Duranty, Sydney Schanberg like the communists and went on to ignore or excuse their enormous crimes.
My advice to Sydney Schanberg is to apologize for his reporting on Cambodia and give back his 1976 Pulitzer Prize for International he won for his Cambodia coverage.