I finally finished The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins, a very depressing book about the US and its role in the 1965 coup in Indonesia, as well as the massacres that followed it. I was expecting it to be pretty specific to Indonesia but I came out of this book with a broad sense of what was going on in the Cold War (from the American perspective) in the third world.
For example, we hear about how domino theory was used to justify the Vietnam War, but the main country that they were afraid would fall to communism after Vietnam was Indonesia. When Sukarno was overthrown in Indonesia, it was like the Americans didn’t need to win Vietnam anymore, because they had won a bigger prize in the region. Also, the events in Indonesia were used to justify other massacres across the third world, with US backing. It’s depressing because, as the book notes, there is no way that Indonesia will acknowledge those massacres anytime soon, and most people still believe propaganda.
I’ve started reading The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry. It’s a revisionist history of the “Dark Ages” that tries to address misconceptions that people have about that era of history. So far it’s really interesting! I’ve just started my master’s degree so it’s very likely that the next book I read will be a textbook, so I’m going to enjoy this while I still can 😅
I finally finished The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins, a very depressing book about the US and its role in the 1965 coup in Indonesia, as well as the massacres that followed it. I was expecting it to be pretty specific to Indonesia but I came out of this book with a broad sense of what was going on in the Cold War (from the American perspective) in the third world.
For example, we hear about how domino theory was used to justify the Vietnam War, but the main country that they were afraid would fall to communism after Vietnam was Indonesia. When Sukarno was overthrown in Indonesia, it was like the Americans didn’t need to win Vietnam anymore, because they had won a bigger prize in the region. Also, the events in Indonesia were used to justify other massacres across the third world, with US backing. It’s depressing because, as the book notes, there is no way that Indonesia will acknowledge those massacres anytime soon, and most people still believe propaganda.
I’ve started reading The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry. It’s a revisionist history of the “Dark Ages” that tries to address misconceptions that people have about that era of history. So far it’s really interesting! I’ve just started my master’s degree so it’s very likely that the next book I read will be a textbook, so I’m going to enjoy this while I still can 😅