Strongman: The Extraordinary Life of Hun Sen From Pagoda Boy to Prime Minister of Cambodia

by Mehta, Harish C.; Mehta, Julie B.

• ISBN13: 9789814361293
• ISBN10: 9814361291
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2013-05-01
• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia)

Summary

Strongman: The Extraordinary Life of Hun Sen is the biography of the Cambodian leader whose private life has been a closely guarded secret. Fully updated and revised from the authors’ first edition (Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia, published 1999), this volume is based on recently declassified archival documents and hours of new interviews with Hun Sen, his wife Bun Rany, son Hun Manet, other family members and associates. The book chronicles the life of Hun Sen from obscurity as a pagoda boy to strongman status. It reveals the life of Hun Sen and Bun Rany under the Khmer Rouge regime, their troubled romance as junior Khmer Rouge cadres, his escape to Vietnam, and triumphant return to liberate his country from genocide, and his emergence as the longest-serving leader in Southeast Asia.

Author Biography

Harish C. Mehta is a historian with a PhD from McMaster University. He teaches American foreign relations, Southeast Asian history, the Vietnam Wars and world history at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, and Trent University. He is the author of three books on Cambodia and has published articles in the journals Peace & Change, The Historian and Diplomatic History.
Julie B. Mehta has a PhD from the University of Toronto in English literature and South Asian studies. She teaches the chancellor-endowed course on asian cultures in Canada at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Dance of Life: The Mythology, History, and Politics of Cambodian Culture and has published extensively in academic books and journals on food history and global literatures.