The history of modern Cambodia has been one of invasion, occupation, political chaos, and genocidal terror. Marie Martin traces the evolution of post-World War II Cambodian politics and society, examining the disintegration of a once-peaceful nation. Interviews with peasants, refugees, politicians, and intellectuals, as well as exhaustive archival research, make this both a stirring ethnographic portrait and an exacting political analysis.

Twenty-five years of research and travel in Cambodia, much of it spent living in peasant villages, give Martin a unique perspective on the country's...