Vincent Bevins

The story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world - and what comes next   From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. IF WE BURN is a stirring work of history built around a single, vital question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for?   From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. He draws on four years of research and hundreds of interviews conducted around the world, as well as his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon.   Careful investigation reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.

Pada 1965, pemerintah AS membantu penumpasan angota partai komunis maupun orang-orang yang dituduh komunis di Indonesia dengan korban kurang lebih satu juta nyawa penduduk sipil tak bersenjata. Inilah salah satu titik balik terpenting bagi dunia kapitalis Barat abad ke-20, menghabisi partai komunis terbesar di dunia di luar Uni Soviet dan Tiongkok. Intervensi rahasia CIA ini bisa dibilang begitu sukses sampai membuat peristiwa ini kini jarang sekali diingat dan diketahui oleh masyarakat Barat. Metode brutal yang dipakai untuk mengambinghitamkan komunis untuk lalu menumpasnya juga begitu sukses sehingga dicontoh dan menginspirasi program-program serupa di negara lain: “Operação Jakarta” di Brasil atau “Plan Yakarta” di Cile. Memakai dokumen-dokumen resmi yang baru dideklasifikasi, ditambah dengan riset arsip dan wawancara bersama para penyintas dan saksi mata, Vincent Bevins menelusuri bagaimana semua ini terjadi dan apa warisannya bagi konstelasi politik dan ekonomi dunia yang kita hidupi sekarang.

The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States. In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful. In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-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.