Geoffrey B. Robinson has amassed an extraordinary amount of research about the Indonesian anti-communist crusade that occurred from 1966 and in some aspects lasted decades. Hundreds of thousands were murdered, imprisoned and tortured at the implicit and explicit direction of the USA backed Junto lead by Suharto. The book lays all of this out very clearly in minute detail and is adequately referenced in all respects. It is an academic work that is very readable, albeit the material itself is devastating to read. The reader should be warned that you can not read this and remain unaffected.

I would have scored this book higher except that it has certain deficiencies. First is that in efforts to show the connections with the USA and the UK in their guiding and supporting role it misses other opportunities. There were long standing internal division between the peasantry and the elites that have historical roots in Indonesian history before the Cold War and before Colonialism.

Reducing this to a Cold War struggle misses an important understanding. What was being created by Sukarno and why he sought an independent path? It was a path that left him isolated and he knew he was living dangerously and said so. The reader needs to know more about the country and the history as well as the tragedy to fully appreciate the current situation as well as the situation then. The complexity of the Indonesian society and Sukarno's actions are not full explained. I do not feel Robinson did enough to explain the background. However it is an oversight we can forgive considering the monumental task of detailing the tragedy which he has completed here.

The repeated insistence by Robinson that the use of NGO human rights groups could have prevented or lessened the crime seems a strange liberal fig leaf to offer in the face of such a tragedy. He makes comparisons to other similar acts of repression and mass murder without significant references and explanation to make those connections. In short the situation called for armed resistance to the crimes committed, in a similar way as the Warsaw Uprising was justified in the face of the Shoah. Why this did not occur was not addressed which leaves a gaping hole in the narrative.