'A superb, chilling, yet human portrait of a monster' -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph 'A model of research ... an intelligent and compassionate account of the Cambodian nightmare' -- Spectator 'Like a clever and determined detective, Short has exposed the secrets ! The result is horrifying, but it must be read' -- Scotland on Sunday 'Brings clear thinking to the big questions of blame' -- Sunday Times 'Comprehensive and eloquent biography of a monster' -- Literary Review 'Short unerringly broadens the inquiry to the point where serious history begins, and serious judgements can be made' -- Financial Times 'Short's brilliantly detailed account is a salutary one' -- Sunday Herald 20041031 'Riveting' -- Scotsman 20041106 'Philip Short has done a spectacularly efficient job of describing what happened, and how' -- Economist 20041106 'Exhaustive and authoritative' -- Times Literary Supplement 20050401 'Short has made a Herculean effort to reconstruct the past.' -- Telegraph, Robert Colville. 20050401 'The result is a searching account' -- Sunday Times 20050814

Philip Short was for many years a foreign correspondent for the BBC, and now lives and writes in southern France. He first encountered Pol Pot in Beijing in 1977. His last book, Mao: A Life, has been hailed as the definitive biography of the founder of modern China.