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first-rate eyewitness reporting on Cambodia's most turbulent years

Revisado: 04-22-25

Amazing experiences and perspectives by a man who witnesses a lot of remarkable things over some key decades of modern Cambodian history and interacted with the major players on the stage during those eras, through 1997. Well written and engaging, and pleasantly and engagingly narrated.

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An absolute masterpiece of popular history

Revisado: 07-27-22

Where to start? In the Shadows of Utopia is stunningly good. It feels like this podcast was created as a cosmic gift to me. For more than half my life I have pursued an amateur interest in twentieth-century Cambodian history, learning the language, reading books, visiting places, meeting people, trying to wrap my head around what happened, how, and why. And then I found this amazing podcast. This podcast is the single greatest synthesis of modern Cambodian history available. It pulls together a lot of threads into a coherent narrative that is extremely compelling, that helps to contextualize, to picture, to imagine, and to understand all the events of that history in a way that no other resource ever has. And all without skimping on details. (My one, teensy critique is that Khmer names and words are delivered oddly sometimes. But that is a minor and personal quibble, maybe even an endearing quirk, compared to the absolute wealth of content that is In the Shadows of Utopia.)

I personally place a very high value on the ability to explain something complex in a way that makes it accessible and understandable. I believe that almost any complex subject, given the right talented individual, can be explained in a way that opens it up and makes it accessible to other people. This involves not just explaining or telling information, but painting mental pictures. For history in particular, it includes helping someone to imagine a scenario in real life and to unlock an understanding of that event as a believable real-world happening, not just a constellation of cold facts, through that imagining. (For me, that also means a passion for nitty-gritty contextual details, and using them to bring events to life and ground them in the actual world.) And it includes the use of great examples and great metaphors to unfold and illuminate. Lachlan Peters is a master at all of this, and pushes all of the right buttons. It is these talents, combined with his obvious, palpable passion for the topic itself, that makes his podcast so effective in unlocking this topic so deftly, and so compelling to listen to. (Also, the theme music is awesome and enhances the production.)

What an absolute treasure. I rejoice at the existence of this podcast, and my fortune in having discovered it. I can barely wait for more episodes.

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One of the best audio books I've ever enjoyed.

Revisado: 05-21-19

Wow. Dennis Quaid breaths such life into this book. Totally loved it. Thoroughly enjoyable and riveting.

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