Sydney Schanberg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times coverage of the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. But his reporting on Cambodia is largely known from "The Killing Fields," the Academy Award-winning film starring Sam Waterston as Schanberg, which was based on his New York Times article chronicling the search for his captured Cambodian colleague Dith Pran and Pran's escape to freedom in 1979.
“There is a biblical quality to this story. What you have in this
book is a tremendous, bone-chilling piece of eyewitness war
correspondence. What makes it truly extraordinary, however—what
makes it a transcendent and classic piece of war literature—is the
story of the survival of Dith Pran and the deepening affection
between two men from different worlds. Caught up in a war in which
the vile and inhuman have become commonplace, two men are reborn by
discovering the depths of their own humanity. In the end, they have
won a personal victory over war itself.”—Russell Baker, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist, humorist, chronicler of American life,
former columnist for the New York Times, and former host of
Masterpiece Theatre
“I recommend reading this remarkable book all at once, as I did.
You’ll learn things. You’ll be fascinated and moved. It puts the
reader where the reporter was and leaves you with an indelible
picture of war as it is. The past—and the myriad, uncounted
noncombatant victims of three wars—are brought back to life. Sydney
Schanberg’s writing matches the intensity of the stories he has to
tell and makes you feel the hurt. ‘This is what it’s like. Look,’
it says. ‘Don’t look away.’ It’s hard, necessary information.”—Sam
Waterston, star of the long-running television drama Law & Order,
who was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of
Schanberg in The Killing Fields
“Sydney Schanberg is one of the greatest war correspondents of the
twentieth century. His passion for Cambodia is outweighed only by
his passion for the truth and for his dear friend and colleague
Dith Pran. This book is a chilling historical document that
lyrically captures some of the darkest periods in American—and
human—history. It is both great journalism and great art."—David
Rohde, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for the New York
Times
“A priceless collection of the war journalism of Syd Schanberg.
Based in Southeast Asia, he was one of a tiny handful of reporters
who remained behind to see the Khmer Rouge take over Phnom Penh and
begin the Cambodian genocide. More recently, Schanberg's was among
the few voices calling to account two U.S. senators, John McCain
and John Kerry, both Vietnam veterans, for manipulating the
findings of a special Senate committee to cover up the truth: that
the Nixon White House, directed by President Nixon and his war
planner, Henry Kissinger, left hundreds of living American POWs
behind in the hands of their captors when we evacuated Vietnam.
Schanberg's war writings offer lessons of great value in our
conduct of today’s wars without end. They remind us at once of
bygone standards of journalistic excellence and the depths to which
humanity can descend in times of war.”—Joseph L. Galloway, coauthor
of We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young and We Are Soldiers Still:
A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam
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