A History of Cambodia

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This clear and concise volume provides a timely overview of Cambodia, a small but increasingly visible Southeast Asian nation. Hailed by the Journal of Asian Studies as an “original contribution, superior to any other existing work,” the first edition ended in 1953 with Cambodia's independence from France; the second carries the narrative forward to the present. In the new material, Chandler focuses especially on the unstable but influential career of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the bloody reign of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, and the relative calm that followed the Vietnamese invasion of 1979. This comprehensive general description and analysis of Cambodia will illuminate—for specialists and general readers alike—the history and contemporary politics of a country long misunderstood.