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"The Stones Cry Out is startlingly good as literature. It is also an important addition to a thin historical record. . . . Her account of the revolutionary rhetoric, set against the reality of what the revolutionaries were actually doing, is as macabre as any of the descriptions of bodies."--The Wall Street Journal

"This is a powerful and compelling story of terror, struggle and death sprinkled with moments of tenderness, written by a woman who writes not of politics but only of what she experienced."--New York Times Book Review

In 1975, Molyda Szymusiak (her adoptive name), the daughter of a high Cambodian official, was twelve years old and leading a relatively peaceful life in Phnom Penh. Suddenly, on April 17, Khmer Rouge radicals seized the capital and drove all its inhabitants into the countryside. The chaos that followed has been widely publicized, most notably in the movie The Killing Fields. Murderous brutality coupled with raging famine caused the death of more than two million people, nearly a third of the population. This powerful memoir documents the horror Cambodians experienced in daily life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Heartbreaking
Cruel and horrifying, this story of near-death during the Pol Pot regime is excruciatingly painful. The author is the sole survivor of an entire family, and manages to escape with a cousin to the refugee camps in Thailand, but not before watching her siblings and parents die of starvation, a tragedy told in unflinching and agonizing detail. In fact, the day-by-day progression of this story is occasionally hard to accept--how could a girl on the verge of death remember every event of every day? When I discovered that her adoptive parents were psychiatrists, I suspected that possibly they were "helping" Molyda recall for therapeutic benefit.

One of the odd things about this book is the lack of introspection--Szymusiak describes one painful experience after another with clinical objectivity and only rarely lets us know her own feelings of anguish and hopelessness.

The book has some historical interest as it was one of the very first personal accounts published of survival under the Khmer Rouge.

the most gut-wrenching historical account I've ever read
There are no words adequate to convey the effect THE STONES CRY OUT had on me when I read it in 1986.It haunted me for years.I wanted everyone I knew to read it.

Just several years ago I met a woman whose entire family - her husband and all her children - died under the Khmer Rouge monsters.

Amazingly, after the stories Miss Szymusiak recounts: of the young girl who was killed for being too pretty, of those murdered for daring to exhibit signs of affection for one another, and of unspeakable tortures inflicted upon absolutely helpless and innocent people of all ages, the chapter which really drained my blood was the one detailing her witnessing the beginning of the purge.The author notes the young Communist cadres being themselves called in for interrogation and torture and disappearing one by one.

This is a chilling account of the darkest period in 20th Century history.

Treated worse than dogs
You need a strong stomach to read the grueling ordeal of a 12 year old girl in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime.
The latter and his cronies turned a whole country into a concentration camp guided by the iron fist of a centrally planned economy which was based on rice production quotas.
Starvation and killing of whole families including babies were part of normal daily life. The author herself lost nearly all her family.
The slogan was 'be deaf and dump if you want to survive'.

Exceptionally, this book also relates the disturbing facts which happened in a Red Khmer camp in Thailand until one year after Pol Pot's defeat by the Vietnamese.

Molyda Szymusiak tells only the facts. She doesn't explain the overall picture of Pol Pot's regime, politically, socially, economically or internationally.
Therefore I highly recommend the eminent works of David Chandler as well as Philip Short's magisterial biography of Pol Pot (Saloth Sar).

This book shows painfully the disastrous consequences of a power grasp by ideological fanatics who created a one party state bureaucracy which wielded total uncontrolled power over the population.
This regime was a terrible shame for the left.

A very disturbing read.

Chilling and moving
My heart sank lower and lower with each successive chapter. This is certainly not a book one can read while couching comfortably on a sofa. If you are familiar with Cambodian history of the Khmer Rouge regime, this book is indeed a chilling read. But at the same time, one can't help feeling admiration for the author's fortitide in the face of unimaginable hardship and horror.

A child's account of her family's struggle to survive.
One of the earliest (1986) accounts from the survivors of the Pol Pot regime, "The Stones Cry Out" seems to have set the style and standard for another more recent child's-eye perspective on the same era,"When Broken Glass Floats".The minute details of everyday life,not abstract poltical assessments, form the basis for our childhoodmemories.The author's account carries an unvarnished realism which drawsthe reader into her film-like image of daily life under threat ofstarvation and execution.This is probably as close as a reader can cometo the truth of events in Cambodia during 1975-79.Oral histories such as"The Stones Cry Out" are perhaps the best way for survivors ofhuman rights abuses to indict the perpetrators.Sadly, tribunals driven byinternational politics are unlikely to have the same impact as the simpletestimony of a victimized child.Highly recommended reading for all thosewith an interest in human rights, Cambodia, and Southeast Asian culture. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an account of a country at war and of a people consigned to the role of pawn in world politics. Haas provides detailed scholarly reassessment of the causes of the Cambodian tragedy--how Cambodia became an arena for superpower conflict. The volume vindicates Vietnam's role in the Cambodian conflict and reveals the treachery of U.S. foreign policy toward Cambodia. Haas' analysis entails a study in comparative foreign policies, an exercise that has theoretical merit for political scientists in search of paradigms of political behavior. Much of the information in the book is based on Haas' recent interviews with 100 key international figures and on primary documents. ... Read more

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This history of Cambodia from World War II up to the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 focuses on the devastating revolution that convulsed the country under Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979, and the civil war that preceded it. David Chandler offers an analysis of the chaos during the 1970s and an understanding of events in the previous quartercentury. Drawing on vast quantities of primary material (including his own reports for the US embassy while a foreign service officer in Phnom Penh), on interviews, and on the scholarly literature, Chandler considers why the revolution happened, how it related to Cambodia's earlier history and to other events in southeast Asia, why it took the course it did, who was responsible for it, and to what extent its ideology drew on foreign rather than Cambodian elements. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Insightful Analysis
Chandler, the most eminent scholar of Cambodia, has provide an easy to follow and insightful account of Cambodia's recent history. Whilst perhaps not designed for those with no base knowledge in Cambodian history, a read of the relevant section of a general Asian history book will provide all the background knowledge necessary.The Tragedy of Cambodian History traces not only the significant events since 1945 but also, through doing so, traces the lives of people such as Nuon Chea who were to become instrumental in the disastrous events from April 17, 1975.I would recommend this to be read before either of Kiernan's major works on the topic as they provide more facts which new readers are liable to get bogged down in.

Perfect for those who feel the need to understand one of the worst cases of man's inhumanity to man.

Very hard to follow and understand.Disappointing
I had to read "the tradedy of cambodian history" by David Chandler for a history course at my university.The class focuses on genocide in the 20th century so I was very interested in Chandler's bookbecause I knew little about the Cambodian Genocide by Pol Pot. So maybeit was because I went in with high expectations that made me feeldisappointed afterwards.I expected this book to not so much be"easy" to read, but I thought I would at least be able to followalong with the main points.This is where I first found fault. Chandleruses SO many names and dates that really seem irrelevant in the scheme ofthe book.It made it very distracting because I was unsure which names anddates were actually of importance.Usually authors use names and dates toemphasize a point or event.Chandler just uses them all the time for everysingle, tiny event.I understand history is made up of names and dates,but the larger picture of history is better to gain than the names anddates. So I was extremely distracted and that was the first thing that madeit hard to follow. The second reason I got lost easily was because Chandlerswitches back and forth between names.For example, Pol Pot was not PolPot's real name.So Chandler sometimes refers to Pol Pot by that name, orby his real name.He constantly switches back and forth with no realpattern.For a long time I could not figure out who this person was thatChandler kept talking about every now and then.Finally I figured out thatit was Pol Pot's other name. Despite these negative aspects, I didappreciate the last chapter which gives eyewitness accounts of theCambodian Genocide.It makes the entire book seem a little more personaland real.However, Chandler does not really delve deeply into the humanaspects of emotions and feelings about the genocide.He reports theeyewitnesses' accounts but does not add any personal information.So againI really did not find myself too attached to these people.I empathizedwith them, but their accounts did not stand out as much as some Holocaustones do.Overall I think if people are interested in just getting a basicoverview of Cambodian history, this would not be the book for them.I amsure this is a wonderful book for people like professors and scholars onCambodia, just not for average, or even above-average readers/students. Out of five stars I would have to give it a 1.8 if I was going on a strictpoint scale. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the moving story of three generations of a Cambodian family and an extraordinary woman who forged a new life for herself out of the carnage of the killing fields. Interweaving family history, national politics, and personal memoir, this book traces the experiences of the daughter of a senior Cambodian government bureaucrat. Part of her family was lost and others tossed to the corners of the globe as refugees as the bloody civil war devastated her country. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

There are others
This book is okay.I found others that are better written and more descriptive of the terrible tragedy in Cambodia.I would suggest When Broken Glass Floats instead. ... Read more

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Escape from the Killing Fields tells the true story of Ly Lorn, a young Cambodian woman caught up in the genocide that took place in the 1970s. The lone Christian in her Buddhist family, Ly Lorn's love of God illuminated her walk through that horrible valley of death that was Cambodia. ... Read more

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Deserves to Be Well Known
This is an excellent account of the sufferings experienced by the author & her family during the Cambodian Holocaust. It is gripping & well done. It deserves to be widely read & better known. Although it has a Christian slant, it doesn't much affect the main part of the narrative. It would be a valuable and gripping read for anyone regardless of their religious beliefs. I rarely post book reviews but felt this book really deserved a review. ... Read more

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This book explores the legal issues surrounding accountability for the crijes of the Khmer Rouge and crimes of mass violence more generally. Comprising chapters by legal academics, lawyers, historians, artists, and others, the volume presents thorough analyses of the complex problems inherent to accountability efforts and novel ideas as to how to address them. ... Read more

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The author explores the role of "peackemaker" that Indonesia volunteered to play by way of resolving the complex Cambodian conflict. He examines what motivated Indonesia; how far the country lived up to ASEAN expectations; and whether the country succeeded as a mediator. ... Read more

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The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for three years, eight months and twenty days. After overthrowing Lon Nol in April 1975 and establishing a so-called Democratic Kampuchea, the Communist-sponsored government was responsible for the deaths of as many as two million people, almost one-third of the country's population. Here, Chileng Pa vividly recalls life under the Cambodian Communists. Attempting to conceal his identity as a policeman for the previous government, Chileng changed his name and moved his family to the village of Prayap, near the Vietnamese border. In April of 1977, after two years of starvation and cruelty at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Chileng was forced to watch as Communist guerillas brutally murdered his wife and two-year-old son. With nothing left for him in Prayap Chileng fled to Vietnam, but eventually returned to Cambodia as part of a Vietnamese invasion force that would end the bloody reign of the Khmer regime. In 1981 Chileng and his new family found their way to America. His "simple strand of remembrance" serves to honor all those who died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. ... Read more

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Cambodia underwent a triple transition in the 1990s: from war to peace, from communism to electoral democracy, and from command economy to free market. This book addresses the political economy of these transitions, examining how the much publicised international intervention to bring peace and democracy to Cambodia was subverted by the poverty of the Cambodian economy and by the state's manipulation of the move to the free market. This analysis of the material basis of obstacles to Cambodia's democratisation suggests that the long-established theoretical link between economy and democracy stands, even in the face of new strategies of international democracy promotion. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! TheCambodian People's Party,is the current rulingparty of Cambodia. This party was formerly known asKampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP,French acronym 'PRPK'). It was the sole legal partyin the country at the time of the People's Republicof Kampuchea (PRK) 1981-1989 and the first two yearsof the State of Cambodia 1989-1991. Its name waschanged during the transitional times of the SOC,when the single-party system, as well as the Marxist- Leninist ideology were abandoned ... Read more

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For 25 years, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge have avoided responsibility for their crimes against humanity. For 30 long years, from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, the Cambodian people suffered from a war that has no name. Arguing that this series of hostilities, which included both civil and external war, amounted to one long conflict—The Thirty Years War—Craig Etcheson demonstrates that there was one constant, churning presence that drove that conflict: the Khmer Rouge. New findings demonstrate that the death toll was approximately 2.2 million people—about half a million more than commonly believed. Detailing the struggle of coming to terms with what happened in Cambodia, Etcheson concludes that real justice is not merely elusive but may, in fact, be impossible for crimes on the scale of genocide.

This book details the work of a unique partnership, Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program, which laid the evidentiary basis for the forthcoming Khmer Rouge tribunal and also played a key role in the international advocacy necessary for the tribunal's creation. It presents the information collected through the Mass Grave Mapping Project of the Documentation Center of Cambodia and reveals that the pattern of killing was relatively uniform throughout the country. Despite regular denial of knowledge of the mass killing among the surviving leadership of the Khmer Rouge, Etcheson demonstrates that they were not only aware of it, but that they personally managed and directed the killing.

Customer Reviews (1)

A unique insider's perspective of the Khmer Rouge era
This book focuses on the long struggle to bring the Khmer Rouge accountable for the auto-genocide that occurred in Cambodia in the late 1970s. Unlike most books on Cambodia, it does not focus on the history of the killings but how different actors in Cambodian society have dealt with the aftermath. It provides a very useful description of the Documentation Center for Cambodia's work collecting information on the killings. The last chapters discuss the politics behind bringing the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. This is particularly interesting given the fact that the current tribunal has just begun hearings.

Etcheson tells this story as a true insider, as indeed he is. Not only has he been a longstanding advocate for justice for the Khmer Rouge, he now serves with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal he helped establish. As such, his writing is tinged with passion for his cause. Well worth the read for Cambodia scholars or those interested in seeking justice for mass human rights violations. ... Read more