The Khmer Rouge revolution turned Cambodia into grisly killing fields, as the Pol Pot regime murdered or starved to death a million and a half of Cambodia's eight million inhabitants. This book - the first comprehensive study of the Pol Pot regime - describes the violent origins, social context, and course of the revolution, providing a new answer to the question of why a group of Cambodian intellectuals imposed genocide on their own country.

Includes maps of: [Zone, Regional, and Former Provincial Boundaries]; Western Zone of Democratic Kampuchea; Region 13, Southwest Zone; Eastern Zone of Democratic Kampuchea; Region 5, Northwest Zone.

The making of the 1975 Khmer Rouge victory -- Cleansing the cities: the quest for total power -- Cleansing the countryside: race, power, and the party, 1973-75 -- Cleansing the frontiers: neighbors, friends, and enemies, 1975-76 -- An indentured agrarian state, 1975-77 -- The base areas -- The southwest and the east -- An indentured agrarian state, 1975-77 -- Peasants and deportees in the northwest -- Ethnic cleansing: The CPK and Cambodia's minorities, 1975-77 -- Power politics, 1976-77 -- Foreign relations, 1977-78: Warfare, weapons, and wildlife -- "Thunder without rain": race and power in Cambodia, 1978 -- The end of the Pol Pot regime.