Bevins isn’t necessarily surfacing groundbreaking new findings, but instead arguing that we’ve been looking at the past all wrong. Through empathetic reporting and fastidious archival research, he examines two overlooked periods of the Cold War ... Based on the outcome of the Cold War, it seems logical to conclude that—aside from some unfortunate missteps—the United States was a rational and effective actor. Bevins dispels this notion ... Unlike other Cold War accounts, Bevins also makes clear that its history is not just of countries, but people. He weaves in the narratives of individuals subsumed by the endless violence, often dragged around the world by the larger geopolitical forces out of their control ... By focusing on these narratives, he makes the complex transnational dynamics of the Cold War both easier to comprehend and more grounded in human stakes ... The Jakarta Method is a devastating critique of US hypocrisy during the Cold War, and a mournful hypothetical of what the world might have looked like if Third World movements had succeeded.
In brisk but assured prose, Bevins recounts how Brazil and Indonesia became 'the best allies that Washington’s foreign interventions had ever created.' The ruinous legacy of these policies, more than the specific acts of unspeakable violence that they engendered, is the book’s main subject ... Bevins is not the first to note that the Cold War frequently burned hot in the Third World, but he excels at showing the human costs of that epic ideological struggle.
... trenchant ... powerful ... He translates the findings of complex scholarly accounts into smooth and readable, if often heartbreaking, prose ... Bevins adroitly examines the massive military assistance program ... In examining the causes of the Indonesian genocide, Bevins covers a lot of ground concisely and persuasively...[with] sensitive treatment of victims and survivors in The Jakarta Method.
The great originality and insight of the book is its emphasis on the international scale of 1965. Drawing on examples from Indochina to Latin America, Bevins reveals how Washington perfected a form of violent if invisible intervention, constructing an 'international network of extermination' that targeted communist regimes and sympathizers in the developing world ... Bevins is not the first to describe and analyze America’s violent imperialism in the Cold War ... But more than anyone else, Bevins shows that what linked communists across borders was not so much a belief in international revolution but their shared experience of murder and defeat.
... riveting ... As a polemic, The Jakarta Method is never anything less than conscientious and persuasive, but Bevins’s book truly takes flight as a work of narrative journalism, tracing the history of America’s violent meddling in Southeast Asia and Latin America through the stories of those it brutalized ... In perhaps the most chilling passage of the book, Bevins asks the head of Sekretariat Berasama ’65, an advocacy group for the victims of Indonesia’s purges, how the United States won the Cold War. His answer is simple: 'You killed us.'
... a shocking portrait that few readers will forget. Bevins is convinced that most Americans today are aware of this particularly bloody era of U.S. foreign policy, and he’s likely right. Although his conclusions will be treated as unbelievable or exaggerated by some, his research is solid and his conclusions convincing. A well-delineated excavation of yet another dark corner of American history.
