Whether you call it communism, socialism, democratic socialism, national socialism or some other similar name, the results follow a long familiar pattern of rigged elections, "re-educated" or killed opposition, closing all but state run press, making guns illegal, etc, etc. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung is another story of a family in Cambodia this time before and after the takeover by Pol Pot's communist Khmer Rouge army. They immediately rounded up and shot any high-ranking officials and bureaucrats they could find. The remaining population was forced to evacuate the cities and moved to rural collective farms to work as slave labor to grow food for the communes. The author shares her memories of those shocking days when her family tried to blend in with the mostly poor peasant class to avoid execution. It all changed when she was only five years old and the army gave short notice that everyone had to leave the cities because of an impending attack and that they would all be back in about three days, which was an outright lie as there was no plan for anyone to return to the cities. They all lived in horrible conditions working long days at hard manual labor, eating in communal kitchens, and subjected to abuse by the guards and those in charge of each village. You can guess some of what happens based on the title, but the author and her siblings tried their best to stay together throughout their ordeal. If you think socialism is a great idea whose time has come, read this book and numerous other first-hand accounts from those who have lived under socialist regimes. Highly recommended!

Very powerful and sad memoir of a young victim of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot's regime. Ung was only 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia, and she and her family spent the next 4 years trying to survive that brutal regime's treatment of the Cambodian people. I'm quite willing to bet there is no one who lived through that who doesn't have a heartbreaking story. Ung lost both parents and two of her sisters. Those losses in and of themselves would be more than most of us could bear. But Ung and her remaining siblings did what they had to to live. This was difficult to read since the deprivation and brutality were extreme. But it is so important to know about these events, to know what happened and why they can't happen again and should not be going on anywhere in the world right now.

This is one of the most powerful books I've read. It's an autobiography of a young girl and her family during the oppressive Pol Pot regime. I traveled to Cambodia last year with only a faint idea of what the Khmer Rouge was and of what actually happened in that country in the late 1970s. Loung Ung's story is a story is one of survival. If it weren't, it would be too heartbreaking to bear.

Under Pol Pot, people were forced to leave their homes in the cities and move into the countryside where they were to be "rehabilitated" as farmers where many died of starvation or were executed by the Khmer Rouge. It decimated the population. Today, forty percent of the population is under the age of 15.

Cambodia is an amazingly beautiful place. The 1,000-year-old temples of Angkor are some of the most amazing structures ever built. The people of Cambodia are warm and welcoming. I am humbled by their strength.

Anyone feeling sorry for themselves because we are changing our habits of going outside and meeting up with family and friends.

Read this book, and you will get over yourself very quickly. Near death and death throughout.