"The text sparkles with shrewdly plausible inferences mortared into a compelling narrative . . . Short] is excellent at coining pithy summations of political motives that ring humanly true."--The New York Times Book Review (front page)

Observing Pol Pot at close quarters during the one and only official visit he ever made abroad, to China in 1975, Philip Short was struck by the Cambodian leader's charm and charisma. Yet Pol Pot's utopian experiments in social engineering would result in the death of one in every five Cambodians--more than a million people.
How...