Beyond the Killing Fields: War Writings

This first-ever anthology of the war reporting and commentary of Pulitzer Prize - winning journalist Sydney Schanberg is drawn from the hundreds of articles he has written for the New York Times , Newsday , the Village Voice , and various magazines. The centerpiece of the collection is his signature work, The Death and Life of Dith Pran ( New York Times Magazine , January 1980). This article became the foundation of Roland Joffe’s acclaimed film The Killing Fields (1984), which explored the Khmer Rouge - led genocide in Cambodia during the late 1970s. Although Schanberg won the Pulitzer Prize for his work in Cambodia, he also reported on Vietnam in the 1970s, revealing the weakness and corruption of the Saigon regime that Washington tried to prop up. A tenacious advocate for American POWs in Vietnam who were allegedly left behind when the war ended, Schanberg delves into his years-long reporting battle - using various documents that the mainstream press still chooses to ignore - indicating that American soldiers, likely in the hundreds, were left as prisoners in Vietnam and essentially abandoned by their country. When he became the media critic for the Village Voice, Schanberg offered a unique and searing viewpoint on the current war in Iraq, which he calls America’s ‘strangest war’. His criticism of the Bush administration’s secrecy brings his war reportage into the present and presents a vigorous critique of what he considers a devious and destructive presidency.