Customer Reviews

Cambodia: Report From a Stricken Land

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

Great history of recent events in Cambodia. Except for a few lapses, I found it very readable book. Considering the book's length, you can't really lose with this one (I read it easily on a weekend).

The book benefits from Kamm's background. He is from a former Eastern bloc country. Kamm is not afraid to identify 'villains' and the flaws of supposed 'heroes'. Furthermore, as a reporter for the New York Times, Kamm's skills at exposition are outstanding. Still, the book has two general failings: (1) pedantic grammar and (2) sycophantic tendencies. If memory serves, English is not Kamm's first language - and sometimes it shows. Some of his sentences are an endless series of clauses, taking on a stream of consciousness quality. Fortunately, the entire book is not like this. It seems Kamm simply tries too hard.

Second, Kamm generally offers high praise for those who have consented to be interviewed - at least initially. For example, Kamm heaps praise on Prince Sihanouk. To be fair, he later criticizes (harshly) the Prince. Still, the reader is sometimes left to wonder how 'balanced' Kamm's point-of-view really is. Although Kamm is blameless for not having equal access to the Khmers Rouges as he does their successors, the reader is left with the uneasy feeling that the book suffers from factual gaps.

How lucky you are

In a country where we hold our sense of victimhood as dearly as we do Mom and apple pie, "Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land" should be required reading. Though author Henry Kamm is a New York Times correspondent, this is not the standard history written from an U.S. foreign policy perspective. Kamm has reported from Cambodia for four decades; his is the tale of the Khmer people. Like much of Southeast Asia, Cambodia has long been impoverished, undeveloped and far more corrupt than Chicago in its heyday. Though Kamm's coverage stretches back a few hundred years, it largely centers on the last 40: the height of Cambodia's suffering. He chronicles the rule of a despot prince, the brutal idiocy of communism and the brief yet notorious reign of the Khmer Rouge, which matched the Nazis horror for horror. Equally fascinating is a view of the Cold War from a Third World pawn's perspective. For the last 50 years, Cambodia has been the foreign policy slave of France, the U.S., Vietnam, China, Thailand and the U.S.S.R. Yet you'll find no talk of democracy's glorious triumph - a la Reagan - in this book. Without preaching, Kamm starkly illustrates how American policy has precious little to do with human rights and freedom. It had everything to do with self-interest. Many Cambodians died because of it. If there's a quibble with the book, it's that Kamm occasionally jumps from date to date, making it a tad hard to follow. But this is a minor complaint. The wonderful thing about Kamm is that he doesn't use the dry, thesis-paper speak used by so many history writers. This is a book that is both personal and compassionate.

Having just returned from a three week trip to Cambodia, I would not claim any expertise but did find myself wondering what book the Phnom Penh reviewer had read. Kamm vividly communicates the pain and the pathos of the Cambodian people as they have been used and misused both as pawns in larger geopolitical struggles by Thailand, Viet Nam, China, the former Soviet Union, and, sadly, the United States as well as their internal political leaders- including the current batch of squabbling, feuding leaders obsessed with power and the perquisites of power while the pressing needs of the masses of the Cambodian people go abegging. While one can sympathize with Kamm's plea that some disinterested international body must be found to run the country until a new generation of leaders emerges, that is not a viable alternative to the current paralysis. Further it appeared to me that Cambodia is already nurturing an unhealthy over-dependence upon NGO's and what NGO's can do. For better or worse, it is the Cambodian people themselves who will determine and shape their own destiny ! Henry Kamm's book helped me find eyes to see, and it is the resiliency, the sparkling eyes, and the yearning hopes of the Cambodian children I met as well as their haunting fears and legacy of pain that I shall never forget

Total honesty is most frequently received as a slap in the face. Unfortunately, the recipient can never seem to understand how richly-deserved or well-intentioned the painful gesture might be. The "powers that be/were" in Cambodia, the United Nations, and the United States State Department, will only react with anger at the sting of Henry Kamm's assessment of the current state of affairs in Cambodia. But even that reaction would be an improvement over the past. "The insouciant Khmer smile that continued to beam when there was nothing to smile about" infected UNTAC, US diplomacy, and the international community immediately upon arrival in Cambodia. As Kamm aptly puts it, "UN officials stationed in the poorest countries of the world share an understandable inclination to work themselves into a constant state of determined optimism about their mission". The modern American "politician diplomat" is no different than his/her UN counterpart in that regard. Readers of "Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia" by Stephen Morris will perhaps reach their own conclusions as to why only Vietnam will remain secretly pleased at Cambodia's fate.

Henry Kamm has made a major contribution with this remarkably blunt, decidedly angry work. Anyone interested in Cambodia should take Henry Kamm's words to heart.

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.

There are endless questions that the war in southeast Asia will forever raise about the players involved, their motivations, alliances, and culpability. Although Kamm doesn't attempt to delve very far into all these questions, he does give a fairly even-handed and objective overview. His chronology is easy to follow, as well as the pace of his writing.

Throughout the book Kamm also does a fine job of explaining some of the intricacies of Cambodian's feelings for their neighbors, especially Thailand and Vietnam, and the history of political struggles and turmoil between the nations.

Few people would be more qualified to write on this subject. The author spent years traveling in Cambodia and other peripheral nations that were involved in the war. He not only had access to the highest authorities in Cambodia's government, he also had their friendship. Among them, King Norodom Sihanouk and Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary.

For anyone who is curious about Cambodia and wants a good introduction to it's history - where it once stood and how it descended to where it is today - this book is a good first step. The only reason I fail to give this book five stars is because it really skimps on some pertinent details, especially in the later chapters, that I feel could have and should have merited a little more fleshing out.

Henry Kamm has prepared a well written, if somewhat basic account of events that ultimately led to the nearly total destruction of what was before 1970 one of the world's most enchanting and unspoiled nations. One can read in other reviews and elsewhere of the facts of the civil war, international manipulation and internal chaos that facilitated the all-out assault on a small though historically rich and proud culture. My reaction to Kamm's book is one of "aha - so that explains it" feelings. Kamm doesn't really address the reasons the Cambodian genocide reached the awful depths it did, but he quite clearly sets the historical stage behind the events. One area where Kamm excels is his presentation of American complicity in the eventual rise of Pol Pot's murderous regime and the USA's mind-boggling embracement of the remnant KR after the Vietnamese invasion in 1978-79. As an American, I realize that the USA has participated in any number of dubious and even immoral "foreign adventures". Kamm accurately describes Cambodia as a place that is ever so slowly trying to recover from one of the most egregious examples of institutionalized destruction in modern history. This is a book that is easy to read and pointed in its observations. It is also a book that should be required reading for any American who wishes to look beyond the typical flag waving, pseudo-patriotic expressions of US might in the world today. It is through education that better decisions may be made in the future, and Kamm's book is educational without being too politicized. I would have liked to see a little more emphasis placed on the longer term effects of the events in Cambodia, such as the very real possibility of the Khmer people ceasing to be a distinct culture, the land mines issues and the continued indifference of the major world powers to the Cambodian political situation. However, Kamm does imply that if the nation can actually be stabilized, the UN-facilitated, yes, facilitated, AIDS epidemic staunched and the Khmer Rouge remnants (including Hun Sen???) brought to justice, Cambodia may eventually return to its former self-sufficient, independent, charming self. One can only hope...

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.

Having lived and worked in Cambodia for the past 3 years, I eagerly looked forward to this book -- to seeing how someone who touts his 30+ years of experience here and in Vietnam perceived and thought about what I have seen. Alas, this man knows not whereof he speaks. He completely ignores the charm, the fortitude, the stoic endurance and the warm family life of the Khmer people. He hasn't a single good thing to say for the country, which, for all its problems, has many strong points. The economy has boomed in the past 3 years, but you wouldn't know it from reading this nonsense. Kamm's solution? International takeover of Cambodia (!) though he does not explain whether this will be done by war or other means. Never mind that this is a sovereign country; the New Yok Times knows best. Kamm's interviews with leading Cambodian politicians (he does not seem to know any other variety of Cambodian people) evinces an appalling ignorance of the most basic features of Khm! er culture, society and manners of speaking. He seems to have got most of his erroneous information from hanging out at the FCCC (Foreign Corespondents'Club of Cambodia) with other equally ignorant and tone-deaf journalists and journalist wanna-bes. Pass on this dog -- take it from one who's been there and still lives there.