HUN SEN'S CAMBODIA

To many in the West, the name Cambodia still conjures up indelible images of destruction and death, the legacy of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime and the terror it inflicted in its attempt to create a communist utopia in the 1970s. In Hun Sen’s Cambodia, Sebastian Strangio, a journalist based in the capital city of Phnom Penh, now offers an eye‑opening appraisal of modern‑day Cambodia in the years following its emergence from bitter conflict and bloody upheaval. In the early 1990s, Cambodia became the focus of the UN’s first great post–Cold War nation‑building project, with billions in international aid rolling in to support the fledgling democracy. But since the UN‑supervised elections in 1993, the nation has slipped steadily backward into neo‑authoritarian rule under Prime Minister Hun Sen. Behind a mirage of democracy, ordinary people have few rights and corruption infuses virtually every facet of everyday life. In this lively and compelling study, the first of its kind, Strangio explores the present state of Cambodian society under Hun Sen’s leadership, painting a vivid portrait of a nation struggling to reconcile the promise of peace and democracy with a violent and tumultuous past. Sebastian Strangio is a former reporter and editor at the Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia’s oldest English‑language newspaper. Since leaving the Post at the start of 2011, he has worked as a freelance correspondent, covering news and events across the Asia‑Pacific, in countries such as Burma, Thailand, South Korea, India, Bangladesh and Far East Russia. His writing from the region has appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Slate, The Christian Science Monitor, The South China Morning Post and the Los Angeles Times. He has a BA and MA from the University of Melbourne in international relations. He is currently a freelance correspondent covering news and events across the Asia‑Pacific. Strangio lives in PP.