The Jakarta Method cover art

The Jakarta Method

Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Jakarta Method

By: Vincent Bevins
Narrated by: Tim Paige
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

 NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ

“A radical new history of the United States abroad” (Wall Street Journal) which uncovers U.S. complicity in the mass-killings of left-wing activists in Indonesia, Latin America and around the world

In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians—eliminating the largest Communist Party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring other copycat terror programs.

In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins draws from recently declassified documents, archival research, and eyewitness testimony to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it’s been believed that 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. Americas Asia Freedom & Security Politics & Government South America Southeast Asia War & Crisis Latin America Soviet Union War Imperialism

Critic Reviews

“A radical new history of the United States abroad.”—Wall Street Journal
"Excellent...anchors itself in a history most Americans never learned or would rather forget."
—Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post
"The Jakarta Method is a must-read to better understand how the U.S. intelligence apparatus became what it is today, and how it's ravaged so many other countries along the way."
—GQ
"Bevins gives a concise account of how US-supported carnage in Indonesia inspired other countries to unleash their own murderous suppression of left-wing movements. By focusing on Indonesia and nations not aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union, he goes beyond the typical Cold War history of arms races and intrigue....As Bevins effectively describes, we are still living in the world created by these anti-communist purges....[His] account raises necessary questions. Did the anti-communist mania of the 20th century make the world any safer? And if so, for whom?"—Foreign Policy
"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."
—The New Republic
"The Jakarta Method dismantles and re-positions the American mythos, similar to two recent Pulitzer Prize winners: Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project and Greg Grandin's The End of the Myth.... 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."
—Los Angeles Review of Books
"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."
—Jacobin
"[The Jakarta Method] sheds a welcome light on the crimes that took place in Indonesia, a history largely forgotten in the West...but it also asks the fundamental question of why America aided such atrocities... Bevins persuasively argues for his country's blanket anticommunism as a kind of zealotry, an irrational pull with origins in the foundation of the United States."
—Times Literary Supplement
"Exceptional...If Indonesia is counted as a 'win' for the pro-regime change crowd, the idea of promoting regime change is absolutely bankrupt and should never be employed again."—The American Conservative
"Trenchant....powerful....[Bevins] translates the findings of complex scholarly accounts into smooth and readable, if often heartbreaking, prose."
—Boston Review
All stars
Most relevant
This is a story that needs to be told. I’m speechless. What a terrific book.

Wow, Just Wow

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very good mix of personal stories combined with the global and national narrative. Chomsky covered this stuff well before, but Bevins ties it together in such a well woven structure that interelates the way US foreign policy unfurls its tendency towards all the most despicable evil he explicates with great accuracy and nuance.

indict US leadership for war crimes in last 70 y

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An amazing insight into what the US wrought during the Cold War and beyond

required listening

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent job by the author and narrator. It feels as though this book could have been much longer but I appreciate all the info within. These stories need to be told as the governments try and hide their participation in these horrible events.

Very well done overview of a history often not talked about

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Another excellent account that lifts the wool from your eyes. This text joins growing library of works that seek to undo decades of US propaganda

Very well put together

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this book, along with many other such buried history, cemented in my mind that the US backed anticommunist regimes are always genocidal and always fascist. anticommunism = fascism.
I'll never forget the chill I felt on a hotel resort beach in semanyak, I didn't know at the time but I was sitting on a mass grave. when you kill hope for the future, you are left with terrorism and poverty such that you find in today's Indonesia

Bali is a killing field not a holiday destination

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this book is fantastic and should be in every school in the world. the facts listed here are of importance to almost every human being in this planet.

absolutely amazing. a must read!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It wasn't until I found myself living in Indonesia that I started learning about the horrors of '65. But not from the local population, those that survived are too traumatised to talk, and the relatives of those who didn't are still too scared. But the story that gave the book its name is just one of a complex narrative of similar atrocities committed in the name of freedom by a paranoid US, manipulated by vested interests, while everyone else looked the other way. Read it and weep, much of what happened during the cold war was every bit as horrific as the horrors of Holocaust.

The definite horror story of the cold war

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Narration flows nicely. Clear pronounciation at an appropriate speed. Exciting chapters with action and thrill.

Great story telling.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Depressing but important read on the legacy for the Global South and world of the brutal tactics adopted by the US in the Cold Way. The degree of their obsession with communism is extraordinary but still visible today.

Important book on legacy of US Cold War tactics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.