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  • The Jakarta Method

  • Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World
  • Written by: Vincent Bevins
  • Narrated by: Tim Paige
  • Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (108 ratings)

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The Jakarta Method

Written by: Vincent Bevins
Narrated by: Tim Paige
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Publisher's Summary

Named One of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, The Financial Times, and GQ

The hidden story of the wanton slaughter - in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world - backed by the United States.

In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the 20th century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.

In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research, and eye-witness testimony collected across 12 countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the US-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.

©2020 Vincent Bevins (P)2020 Hachette Audio

What the critics say

"This fascinating book is a meticulous and shocking analysis of a little-known and horrifically bloody battle of the Cold War, but it is also something more. It places the Indonesia massacre of 1965 in its global context, showing how the United States both supported it and used it as a model for repression in other countries." (Stephen Kinzer, author of Overthrow, All the Shah's Men, Poisoner in Chief)

"In The Jakarta Method, Vincent Bevins argues persuasively that during the Cold War, the U.S. approved of mass murder campaigns to roll back communism in the Third World. This is a provocative, necessary book, an essential guide to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of our imperfect world. Highly recommended." (Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer, author of Che Guevara and Inside the League)

"The Jakarta Method is a gripping, thoroughly original exploration into the global covert Cold War, the passions it provoked, and the corpses it left in its wake. A full tally of the body count of the transnational counterinsurgency Washington has been waging since the early 1960s is impossible. But Bevins' excellent book offers a different kind of reckoning, of moral costs and ongoing political consequences. 'Jakarta is coming' was spray-painted on the walls of Santiago Chile in 1972, just before that country's CIA-backed coup, a way for that nation's rich to let the poor know the fate that would befall them were they to continue to fight for a more just society. 'Jakarta' did come, leaving hundreds of thousands of dead throughout Latin America. And, in a way, it never left." (Greg Grandin, Yale University, author of Fordlandia and The End of the Myth)

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    3 out of 5 stars

unconscious vs conscious bias

You will likely enjoy this book if you are that part of the left wing that likes to think of communism as fundamentally good (although occasionally led mildly astray) and the United States and that great bogeyman Capitalism as fundementally evil. What is unclear is whether the author actually believes he is being an unbiased journalist, as he suggests, or if his obvious bias is intentional. He starts by quite rightly condemning horrific atrocities in American history such as slavery and the genocide of indigenous groups. He condemns, again rightly, the corruption and murders by the nationalist Chinese forces. In comparison, one gets the impression that Stalin and Mao were slightly stern or misguided but otherwise wise and thoughtful leaders rather than being responsible for more deaths of the people in the countries they conquered and ruled than the horrific armies of the nazi and imperial Japanese regimes. He writes as if he thinks Stalin actually wanted to free the colonized people's of the world from evil colonialist forces, rather then this being a convenient propaganda tool (also used by the Americans in the 19th century), and makes no mention of the fact that much of what we call Russia was conquered and the native peoples oppressed in a similar way to that used by other colonial powers such as Britain or France or China. He makes no mention of the mass slave labor in Stalin and Mao's prison camps. I have a hard time listening to the meat of the book, about the atrocities commited by anticommunist forces, because the author appears so ignorant of basic history I am left not being sure what to believe or not in what he is attempting to describe. Did these horrific events happen, with the assistance of the USA? yes. Is this a reliable narrator to describe them? Probably not. Will you like the book if you are a coffee shop socialist who wants to impress your friends with tales of the dreadful actions of the Running Dog Lackeys of the Imperial American Capitalists in their quest to Oppress the Freedom Loving Peoples of the World? Enjoy.

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4 people found this helpful

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Probably the Most Important Book this Year

Bevins does a great job telling the story of American intervention that most people dont know.

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Amazing!

In the beginning I was trying to keep up with all the names of the politicians, etc and was a little frustrated, after I just relaxed and listened to the book, it all made perfect sense. Perhaps it was because I was listening to it rather than reading it. Awesome book, so enlightening!

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Very interesting and compelling listen

It reveals the extent of US involvement in the 3rd world. It seems interesting to me as author talks about dream's and aspirations of the developing world and its people after years of colonial exploitation. It was hard to put down after starting and I managed to finish it in 2 days while working full-time.

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Required reading for anyone who calls themselves a leftist

Jaw dropping to learn about the lengths the CIA went to bring capitalism world wide. The world needs to know about the mass murder and the body count of capitalism.

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