How long does it take to read Pol Pot?
Philip Short
Pol Pot by Philip Short takes about 10 hours 6 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 10 hours 6 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2004. 551 pages, about 151,525 words.
21 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 16 hours 50 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 10 hours 6 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 19 minutes |
The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Philip Short observed Pol Pot at close quarters during the one and only official visit Pol ever made abroad, to China in 1975. He was struck by Pol Pot's charm and charisma, yet, soon after, the leader would emerge as the architect of one of the most radical and ruthless experiments in social engineering ever undertaken. His egalitarian utopia released a reign of terror that would result in one in every five Cambodians - more than a million people - perishing in the killing fields of from hunger. Why did it happen? How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity's worst nightmares? To answer these questions, Short traveled through Cambodia, interviewing former Khmer Rouge leaders and sifting through previously closed archives around the world. Key figures, including Khlen Samphan and Ieng Sary, Pol Pot's brother-in-law and foreign minister, speak here for the first time. Philip Short's masterly narrative reveals how Pol Pot engineered his country's desolation, fashining the definitive portrait of the man who headed one of the most enigmatic and terrifying regimes of modern times. (back cover)
Subjects: Politics and government, Political atrocities, Genocide, Prime ministers, Biography, history
