Are There Books Like The Jakarta Method?

Question

That history book really shifted my perspective on Cold War conflicts. I'm searching for nonfiction accounts of geopolitics with similarly explosive, archival research and compelling narratives about covert operations.

Mir Fahad Talpur · Answer

Also, of possible interest on non-fiction about historical interventions and their modern parallels: more on US foreign policy in Southeast Asia than the typical texts. Also, a number of political thrillers are explored through fiction. Quite opposite in flavor to the above, I saw a notice of a newly published title: “Dripping Forbidden: 100 Ways to Make Yourself Wet” — a darkly humorous web novel by a certain bureaucrat in a dystopian future in which water is strictly controlled. The novel is secretly written by the bureaucrat to list out the 100 ways to make oneself wet illicitly of course and in the process critically examine the ways in which a society can be controlled through denial of basic needs to its citizens.

Nolan · Answer

I thoroughly recommend “The Jakarta Method” and other history “exposés” for those unfamiliar with the nasty tricks of our past. For alternative histories to the standard school texts (which can be equally dense), I recommend “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn (although it’s not always an easy read). For Latin America specifically, I really enjoyed “Open Veins of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano – a beautiful writer who exposes the same nastiness of exploitation of people and resources that has occurred in many parts of the world.

If you prefer in-depth investigative journalism, then a good read on China’s influence around the world is ‘Hidden Hand’ by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg. In addition, The Condor Years: Secret Wars and Coups in Latin America by John Dinges provides a detailed account of South America’s terror when Operation Condor was secretly unleashed upon the region. These books deliver a useful ‘oh damn’ moment as to just how much ‘history’ was excluded from your school years.

Flynn · Answer

Oh absolutely. The Jakarta Method is an incredible book and I’ve been searching for others like it. The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot is a great look into the life of Allen Dulles and the CIA’s operation during the Cold War. It’s essentially a spy novel but it’s based on a lot of real information. And King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild is another really powerful book that uncovers the terrible atrocities of colonialism in Congo, and how there was so much propaganda to cover up the acts of King Leopold and Belgium.

I’ve recently been reading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. It’s a really great analysis of current disinformation and how it’s being propagated. This, along with The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which is a fantastic novel that really captures the paranoia of the Cold War era, are two recent books that I would recommend to continue that feeling of uncovering a secret or realizing something hidden.

Andrew · Answer

Totally! This book is part of a niche genre of books that challenge our perspectives. “Washington Bullets” by Vijay Prashad is an extremely thin yet highly explosive book about interventions by the US, a 150-page version of Bevins’ long-form investigation. Gary Bass’ “Blood Telegram” lays out the facts of Nixon’s genocide in Bangladesh, and how it came to be. And Lawrence Wright’s “The Looming Tower” is a masterful recounting of the blowback from decades of covert intervention.

A different angle, a global perspective of sorts, is The Corporation by Joel Bakan which sets out to show how corporations are akin to State repressors. Memoirs, such as the fascinating The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee, also explain ways in which North Korea’s repressors work these days. The connections it and these other books make over space and time are also reminiscent of The Jakarta Method.

Zara · Answer

All of these books get into the darker side of Cold War geopolitics like The Jakarta Method. If you’re looking for more, Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse uncovers new history about the atrocities committed by the U.S. military in Vietnam. Similarly, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is a great exploration of the ways in which economic shock therapy was used as covert imperialism to extreme ends all around the world.

But if you want a long read that is more of a narrative, The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer is a great alternative to Vincent Bevins’s work. It reads like a novel and is about the Dulles brothers and their role in the CIA’s interventions in several countries. A very different perspective on the same period of time is provided by First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. Written by a survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s brutal time in power in Cambodia, it shows how policy turned into real life to affect individuals in extreme ways. The common thread is an examination of how power and violence are used to achieve ideological ends.

Kendrick · Answer

Yes! The Jakarta Method was a starting point for me to seek out even more historical exposes. Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower by William Blum details every single intervention by the U.S. (imperialism Exposed!). The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Politicians, Power-Hungry Bureaucrats, and Parchment-CLOGGER offices Hab Luna depend on power, and how Kafka Parties Pose with your stayed there constant. Answers questions that The Rough Ride Decision at Cold War historical excuses for Bevins’ anecdotes bring up.

For more specific regional studies of Southeast Asia, the “Pol Pot’s Little Red Book” by Henri Locard gives good insight into the ideology of the Khmer Rouge, and “Nothing to Envy” by Barbara Demick provides an in-depth look at life in isolated North Korea and will leave you haunted long after you finish the book.

Toni Higgins · Answer

One last note on this score: pay close attention to the publishers and imprints of books on critical history. This is agenre dominated by a few excellent publishing houses that specialize in critical history, investigative reporting, and liberal to left political bookslong called “progressive politics.” The principal publishers of books on critical history are Verso Books, Haymarket Books, The New Press, and Metropolitan Books (a division of Henry Holt).

Also, note the endorsements on the back of The Jakarta Method, such as the one from Noam Chomsky. You can go through the other books that that author has endorsed and add them to your reading list as well. The world of this type of history is its own peculiar ecosystem, of authors, of publishers, and of scholars. They reference each other’s work, they support each other’s work, and if you follow the connections, you are going to find more relevant stuff than by just searching for books on particular topics. You are not just reading a book, you are engaging in a conversation with all the other people who have written similar books, and this book is but one voice in a very long and continuing argument.

Miguel · Answer

Now that you’ve read The Jakarta Method, I can provide you with even more secret history. For contemporary, journalism-based versions of a so-called “expanding” U.S. covert warfare system of secret killing, check out Jeremy Scahill’s work, especially his book Dirty Wars. The connections are relentless in Scahill’s work, similar to The Jakarta Method.

There is also plenty of really good historical academic work written in a style that is easy to consume. Greg Grandin’s The Empire of Necessity is a fantastic example of long form historical reporting that connects the histories of slavery and the Age of Revolution to reveal a profoundly violent system beneath the surface of so much of what we consider ‘history’. That work is not Cold War history, but it is written with a similar approach to argue historical points. Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men is a very quick and highly accessed book that provides a really deep look at the history of a single, really ugly intervention in Iran. And then there is the work of Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine, about the secret history of nuclear war planning. It’s a profoundly different kind of horror, but equally revealing.

David Aragón · Answer

I was hoping to get a book that deals as The Jakarta Method does – that is, a deeply investigations historical book that pairs rich global politics with horrific human events, in which a local event is used as a lens through which to explore American foreign policy and the inner workings of the intelligence community. The Jakarta Method is a very specific thing, and I have found few books that deal with this kind of material.

Another book that explores the horror of an event and links it to wider American foreign policy and intelligence operations is ‘Kill Anything That Moves’ by Nick Turse, a harrowing read that has all the same defects as ‘The Jakarta Method’ but is so thorough and compelling in its deconstruction of events during the Vietnam War that it is well worth the read. Or maybe the influence of the Dulles brothers that inspired similar tactics around the world is of more interest to you? ‘The Condor Years’ by John Dinges explores similar campaigns of violence inspired by the CIA in several countries around South America. As always with these sorts of histories, the author’s perspective is as important as the facts they present.

Kaitlyn Smith · Answer

There are many books that offer a similar “red pill” moment of the reader’s eyes being opened to a big truth. For me, one of the most important of these books is “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. This book explains how the media are controlled by and serve the interests of elites, especially in regard to foreign policy. So it makes sense that I would read this after “The Jakarta Method”.

'Public Opinion' by Walter Lippmann is an older, philosophical work that explores how democracies are managed. More recently, 'The Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein examines how regimes have used crises to force favored neoliberal solutions on recalcitrant populations. I brought these books because they supply a needed missing element about the information and economic systems that underpin the behavior Bevins so trenchantly exposed. In other words, they help answer the question of how such extremes of behavior were possible for so long.

Jaybie Smith · Answer

I didn’t find most of the book suggestions listed here to be particularly useful, but there are a few longform pieces that get the main point of The Jakarta Method across: the US exported a lot of violence to quash leftism in its image. The Guardian’s Cold War series for The Long Read, for example, is quite good.

Also, the podcast ‘Blowback’ is really good. The second season of the podcast is a really deep look at the Cuban Revolution, using declassified documents and doing a really clear and historical take on what happened, and then digging in to the mechanisms of intervention and the politics behind it. It’s a really well-produced podcast, almost like an audio documentary. Another good take on this topic as a book is ‘Killing Hope’ by William Blum, which is a pretty straightforward, encyclopedia-like list of all of the interventions that the U.S. has been involved in. It’s not a narrative, but it’s a pretty brutal, fact-after-fact reference that drives home the point of just how many interventions the U.S. has been involved in, and that’s sometimes an effective way to look at something like this.

sonyagale81 · Answer

Graphic novels or comics can be a very effective medium to convey historical information or to discuss political issues. There is the obvious example of Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” which explores the memory of the Jewish holocaust in the context of trauma.

'Persepolis' by Marjane Satrapi is another excellent example of historical subjects being portrayed in graphic novels. 'Palestine' by Joe Sacco is also an excellent example of graphic journalism, immersing the reader in the daily lives of the occupied. The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón is a clear and harrowing adaptation of the documents. 'Drowned City' by Don Brown is another example of historical subjects being portrayed in graphic novels, this time covering the Hurricane Katrina disaster. As the medium conveys historical subjects in a unique way, sometimes a powerful image can convey more on a subject of state-sponsored violence than paragraphs of description.

Dian Marzuki · Answer

Recommendations are often too vague and I prefer people to say “Like” and then recommend something specific. For example, if someone loved learning about a shocking and complex interconnected history, then they might enjoy “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson, a national epic that chronicles the Great Migration of African Americans from the South and will change the reader’s perspective of American history through the individual stories of three people.

'Big-picture' stories about the collective human experience also provide great insights into our nature and the wider forces that drive us as a species, such as Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, which tells the history of our species from a novel perspective. Or The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan, which successfully re-centres world history on Asia. While neither of these books is an exposé, they are both ambitious attempts to present a big new synthesis of history, to challenge our conventional understanding of the world and its evolution.

Are There Books Like The Jakarta Method?

13 Answers

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