The Jakarta Method
2020
- united states, history
- united states, politics and government
- history
- nonfiction
- politics
- political science
- genocide
- war crimes
- united states, central intelligence agency
- anti-communist movements
The story
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 twelve 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 U.S.-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.
What it’s like
Dense but unhurried, this is the sort of nonfiction that reads like a long, sober walk through archives: plain declarative sentences, reportage-style scene-setting in Jakarta, Santiago, Brasília and other cities, and the quiet texture of interviews with survivors and officials who speak in careful, guarded phrases. Its sensory world is paper and typescript, dim offices, humid streets remembered rather than seen, and the weight of testimony that returns again and again to what was done to unarmed people. The vibe is grave, steady and investigative, with a cold clarity that never tips into melodrama. Pacing moves chapter by chapter, country by country, so it suits a slow weekend at a desk, a long train journey, or a deliberate evening of reading with a notebook nearby. The intensity is heavy: frequent accounts of torture, mass killing and disappearances are described plainly, with no gore for its own sake but no softening either. It is for readers who want history that confronts state violence directly, who are comfortable with difficult material, and who value documented evidence over comfort.
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