Magazine & Cambodia: from Angkor to the Khmer Rouge genocide

The prestigious magazine L'Histoire ( in French ) is devoting its April-June 2025 edition to Cambodia. It has several chapters ranging from the long history of Khmer royalty to the colonial period and the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge.

17 April 2025 marks 50 years since the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, the first radical and murderous measure of which was to empty the city and throw its 2 million inhabitants out onto the streets. 17 April 2025 marks 50 years since the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, their first radical and deadly measure being to empty the city and throw its 2 million inhabitants out onto the streets.

This former French Indochina country had, under the leadership of its charismatic sovereign Norodom Sihanouk, peacefully gained independence in 1953, before being destabilised by the Cold War, the American war in Vietnam, and then sinking into civil war.

The greatest specialists look back on the three years, eight months and twenty days of the regime of Democratic Kampuchea, which led to the death of a quarter of the population, but also on the two thousand years of history of this country, which cannot be summarised by the mythical Angkor rediscovered in the 19th century by the French.

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