From the Land of Shadows is a beautifully written meditation on the origins of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, lived experiences during the regime's genocidal reign, and the efforts by those in the Cambodian diaspora to reconstruct their lives and families in the aftermath of genocide. The author, political scientist and ethnic studies scholar Khatharya Um, herself survived the Cambodian genocide. She gracefully interweaves into her work the memories and words of Cambodian survivors, drawn from more than 250 interviews that she conducted in the US, France, and Cambodia in English and Khmer. She combines this attention to lived experience and personal memories with theoretical insights and comparative scholarship on totalitarianism, genocide, haunting, and memory.

Um's book is divided into three parts. She made the interesting choice to go backwards and forwards in time. She first focusses on the experiences of those who lived during the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. During those four years, nearly two million of the approximately seven million residents of Cambodia died from starvation, disease, executions, and disappearances. Um points out that there were regional variations as well as a chronological evolution to these policies. However, she also emphasizes how Khmer Rouge policies systemically targeted not only the urban, educated, and wealthy elite but also foundational social structures in Cambodian culture, namely the family and Buddhism.

Um follows this section with a historical and political discussion of why the Khmer Rouge emerged in the aftermath of World War II decolonization and the US war in Southeast Asia. Although Um begins her work by explicating the utter destruction of social life under the Khmer Rouge, she challenges orientalist interpretations that portray the regime as irrational or inherently Cambodian. Instead, Um explains how historical and political conditions enabled the emergence of the Khmer Rouge and the development of its social policies.

In the final section, Um propels us forward in time to focus on the memories and perspectives of members of the Cambodian diaspora. She seeks to document and acknowledge the sense of loss that many experience as a result of multiple traumas. Those who survived genocide lived through starvation, the death of loved ones, the loss of homeland, the vagaries of refugee life, and the alienating experiences of relocating to unfamiliar countries that tend to relegate them to impoverished and racialized communities.

From the Land of Shadows is a powerful work that draws upon interdisciplinary methodologies. It integrates theoretical insights regarding the political state, violence, and trauma with the lived experience, memories and words of Cambodian survivors. Um's writing tends to assert and assume a collective identity among all those who lived through the Khmer Rouge regime. This collectivism seems appropriate at times, given the magnitude of shared human suffering. However, additional distillation of differences, which the author discusses within the Cambodian diaspora, would have been interesting if it had been explored throughout the work. From the Land of Shadows should draw the interest of scholars of students with diverse interests: Asian American studies, Asian studies, the US war in Vietnam, trauma studies, political science, and so on. It is a rich academic work that is emotionally compelling to read.