What happened to Cambodia in the three years, eight months and twenty-one days between April 17th, 1975 and January 7th, 1979? Why was a city once known as the ‘pearl of Southeast Asia’, with a population of more than two million people, ushered – at gunpoint – into an unknown fate in the nation’s countryside? The story of the Khmer Rouge revolution and the devastating human catastrophe that this group brought to an already war torn and fragile land is one that is usually known simply by a few words; ‘the killing fields’, ‘Pol Pot’, ‘the Cambodian Genocide’ or by it’s association with the other massive human death tolls in the 20th century. The story of how and why more than two million people died in one of the world’s most radical social experiments is the focus of the first podcast to deal exclusively in this topic. Join Lachlan Peters; graduate, long-time student of Cambodian history with experience working with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, as he explores Khmer Rouge revolution within the context of Cambodian history. From the time before the glory days of Angkor Wat, to the rusty gates of Tuol Sleng – and everything in between. The introduction to the series places the listener in the shoes of those who were forced out of their homes as the Khmer Rouge on that fateful day in April 1975. A very brief overview of what the situation looked like leading up to the Khmer Rouge revolution; Cold War politics, the Vietnam War and some of the circumstances that will be explored in far more detail throughout the series. This is in the Shadows of Utopia, the Cambodian Nightmare. Please visit www.shadowsofutopia.com for more information and sources.