The 1970-75 war in Cambodia directly involved the United States, contributed to the downfall of an American president, led to the "killing fields," and explains much of what has since happened in Cambodia. Yet, because U.S. involvement in that part of Southeast Asia was largely clandestine, the American people know little about it, regarding the fighting in Cambodia as a small sideshow to the Vietnam War. In fact, it was a full-scale war in which a small nation, sucked into the vortex of Cold War geopolitics, was propelled into one of history's bloodiest, most brutal periods. This is the first book to deal exclusively with the military aspects of the Cambodian War. In its introductory chapters Wilfred P. Deac describes Cambodia and its people, the decades of French colonialism, and the early years of independence under Prince Sihanouk. In the balance of the book, Deac describes the events of the five years of warfare: the early American and South Vietnamese incursions and the first Cambodian government offensives; the battle for control of the countryside, lost by the government; the corruption, popular unrest, and political in-fighting that weakened the government; the ascendancy of the Khmer Rouge over their North Vietnamese allies; the nonstop, 189-day American bombing offensive in 1973; the siege, strangulation, and fall of Phnom Penh; and the introduction of the horror of the killing fields. A brief afterword looks at Cambodian postwar policies, the Khmer Rouge-Vietnamese War of 1978-79, and today's prostrate Cambodia, an inevitable result of war.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
The Cambodian "killing fields" and the 1975-79 regime of Pol Pot followed a vicious civil war in Cambodia, where from 1970 to 1975 the Cambodian Republic fought the Khmer Rouge with massive U.S. aid. A member of the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia during the war, Deac traces here the war first as a sidelight to that in Vietnam, then as the focus of conflict with Communist forces supported by Soviet and Chinese interests. In the end, U.S. air power could not overcome corruption, poor military leadership, political instability, and economic chaos as represented by Cambodia's leader Lon Nol. Deac's description of events in Phnom Penh captures the tension of the unfolding conflict and provides an important, well-organized narrative of the Cambodian tragedy. For public and academic libraries.?John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
WILFRED P. DEAC was a U.S. government civilian officer posted in the United States, Europe, and Asia between 1960 and 1989. In 1971 he was attached to the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia. He currently works as a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.
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Road to the Killing Fields,
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This review is from: Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970-1975 (Texas A & M University Military History) (Hardcover)
I could not put this book away. From begining to end. It is a must read. It covers so much of the 1970-1975 war within Cambodia. And, I will recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the Vietnam War & Cambodia (under Lon Nol).
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