Brother Number One: A Political Biography

David P. Chandler

In the tragic recent history of Cambodia - a past scarred by a long occupation by Vietnamese forces and by the preceding three-year reign of terror by the brutal Khmer Rouge - no figure looms larger or more ominously than that of Pol Pot. As secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) from 1962 and as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea (DK), he was widely blamed for trying to destroy Cambodian society by implementing policies whose effects were genocidal. Based on interviews and on a wide range of sources in English, Cambodian, and French, this study seeks to cast light on the ideas and behaviour of this enigmatic man and his entourage against the background of post-World War II events, and to provide an understanding of this horrific, pivotal period of Cambodian history.