Ben Kiernan - Select Publications and Awards

Select Publications and Awards

In an article in the Walrus Magazine, Kiernan and Taylor Owen wrote that recent evidence reveals that Cambodia was bombed by the U.S. far more heavily than previously believed. They conclude that "the impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d'état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide."

His 2007 book, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (Yale University Press), received the 2008 gold medal from the U.S. Independent Publishers association for the best work of History published in 2007, and the German Studies Association’s biennial Sybil Halpern Milton Memorial Book Prize for the best book published in 2007 or 2008 dealing with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in its broadest context, covering the fields of history, political science, and other social sciences, literature, art, and photography.

In June 2009, the book’s German translation, Erde und Blut: Völkermord und Vernichtung von der Antike bis heute, won first place in Germany’s Nonfiction Book of the Month Prize (Die Sachbücher des Monats). Kiernan’s writings have appeared in fourteen languages. His books on Cambodian history include How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975 (first published in 1985), and Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial and Justice in Cambodia and East Timor (Transaction, 2007). In 2008, Yale University Press published the third edition of his 1996 book, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979. Kiernan’s anthology Conflict and Change in Cambodia won the Critical Asian Studies Prize for 2002.