You might be well-informed on this subject already, or like me, you were this many years old when you found out that the US's support of a militaristic, right-wind regime in Indonesia led to the deaths of a million people (and perhaps more). This is a harrowing book to read, especially right now. But it is one that must be read.

This history book extends beyond Indonesia to illustrate how the events in Jakarta provided a template for future violence against communists by the US and US-supported allies, particularly in Central and South America. This occasionally gave me a bit of whiplash as a reader as settings rapidly changed, but the tactic more than made up for the occasional disorientation by getting the events in context, before and after.

The respect with which the author treats his interview subjects, along with the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the research (itself a combination of countless documents and personal interviews) really makes this special.

This was a really interesting read, as I didn't know much about this crusade until reading this book. The author did a lot of research and it shows in the writing, as he used a lot of different sources that used to be classified, along with other sources. The thought of our Country allowing numerous people to be killed in order to get rid of Communism shocked me. The methods used by the CIA were something you would expect to see in a movie. I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys history, as this is filled with little known facts.

I was interested in this book because of the innovative approach to contextualizing the CIA's activities in the Cold War. Indeed, this book presents an interesting narrative of the CIA slowly turning against the elected government of Indonesia, with great first-person accounts. Unfortunately the writing style is terrible. It is a struggle to read some of the sentences which get interrupted by unnecessary parentheticals, and there are many other structural decisions which detract from reading comprehension. This book sorely needed a competent and committed editor.

This proved to be as infuriating as it was informative. What else could I possibly feel when reading about the support that the US government provided for hard-right regimes as they brutalized their own citizens? The millions of innocents in Indonesia, Guatemala, and other nations that were terrorized, imprisoned, tortured, and killed not only for involvement in leftist governments or organizations but often mere perceived involvement? The historically documented callousness that US government officials for these disrupted or destroyed lives because they operated with an absurdly broad and also stupidly black and white view of communism that rarely adhered to reality?

Now granted, it’s not as if this historical pattern of US Cold War “support” is brand-new to me. However, until coming across “The Jakarta Method,” I definitely had no idea of the terrible extent of American interference in the toppling of leftist regimes around the globe and the scope of the horribly enthusiastic support it always readily provided for the brutal repressions and exterminations that followed. Through his thorough research and clearly-constructed narrative, VIncent Bevins has successfully provided a brand new lens for the past that reveals a present-day world that is far more shaped, if not outright scarred, by America’s brutal anti-communist support than most realize. I definitely plan on recommending this eye-opening history whenever the opportunity arises.