Pol Pot: The Teacher Who Turned a Country into a Killing Field

By Gordon J. MacKenzie

Pol Pot was a quiet teacher who believed he could remake a nation from the ground up. Instead, he turned Cambodia into one of the deadliest places on earth.

Pol Pot: The Teacher Who Turned a Country into a Killing Field follows Saloth S r from a village in Kampong Thom to Paris student circles, into the jungle as a revolutionary, and finally to Phnom Penh as the architect of Democratic Kampuchea. For four years he emptied the cities, abolished money and religion, and drove millions of people into forced labour. At least a quarter of Cambodia's population died through execution, starvation and disease.

This book traces how an unremarkable provincial boy became "Brother Number One"; how the Khmer Rouge built their secret party in the shadows; why the regime turned on its own ranks in murderous purges; and how Pol Pot spent his last years as a hunted guerrilla, tried by his own comrades and dying in a jungle hut instead of a courtroom.

Drawing on survivor testimony, historical research and tribunal records, Gordon J. MacKenzie shows what happens when ideology, paranoia and absolute power collide-and why Cambodia is still living with the consequences of those four terrible years.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G4RCF6TP
• ISBN13: 9798276999708
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 124 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"