How does Philip Short approach Pol Pot’s personality in his biography, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a nightmare?
This is an interesting book. Short’s account of the French period in Pol Pot’s life is very good. I must say that Short tends to view the whole picture through the lens of French, or Gallicised Khmer intellectuals who were able to give him the kind of narrative he was happy with. I’m not sure if this narrative has led him into the proper places. When he tries to look for causes he starts saying the Cambodians are these dark primitive people, which is not true and is very disdainful. His book is very valuable for sources even though I don’t think his interpretations are that valid in terms of the Khmer. Many writers about the Khmer Rouge, and I’m not criticising individuals, search for intellectual elements that don’t exist. If you go looking for intellectuals in Cambodia you are not going to find them. Intellectuals are one of the things they don’t have. The French don’t really have pub-crawlers; people don’t do certain things in certain cultures. There is no Cambodian Rousseau. In Cam
