Summary of Vincent Bevins's The Jakarta Method

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The United States, a Western European settler colony in North America, emerged from World War II as the most powerful state on Earth. The country came to represent and champion revolutionary, democratic ideals, but internally, things were much more complicated.
#2 The American people were proud of their country after World War II, as they had stood up to an entirely evil system and had won.
#3 The Soviet Union was the second most-powerful country in 1945, after the United States. However, the Soviets had suffered massive losses during the war, and their population was decimated. They were also far weaker than the United States in every way that counts.
#4 The Third World was the term used to describe the majority of the world’s population, who lived under the control of European colonialism in the 1950s.

Sujets

• Colonisation
• Asia
• Southeast Asia

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669354116
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Vincent Bevins's The Jakarta Method
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The United States, a Western European settler colony in North America, emerged from World War II as the most powerful state on Earth. The country came to represent and champion revolutionary, democratic ideals, but internally, things were much more complicated.

#2

The American people were proud of their country after World War II, as they had stood up to an entirely evil system and had won.

#3

The Soviet Union was the second most-powerful country in 1945, after the United States. However, the Soviets had suffered massive losses during the war, and their population was decimated. They were also far weaker than the United States in every way that counts.

#4

The Third World was the term used to describe the majority of the world’s population, who lived under the control of European colonialism in the 1950s.

#5

The American government officially joined the anticommunist crusade after the Russian Revolution, when President Woodrow Wilson chose to help the White forces retake control from the Bolshevik revolutionaries.

#6

The specific kind of anticommunism that took shape in these years was partly based on value judgments: the widespread belief in the United States that communism was simply a bad system, or morally repugnant even when effective. But it was also based on a number of assertions about the nature of Soviet-led international communism.

#7

The case of Greece is an example of how not all communist countries were loyal to the Soviet Union. The Greek communists fought a right-wing government that wanted to annihilate them, rather than obey Stalin’s instructions.

#8

While the Russian Revolution was successful in establishing a communist state, it was not the case in all European countries. Some Marxist parties in Europe, such as the Social Democrats in Germany, rejected the revolutionary path and committed themselves to advancing the interests of the working class within parliamentary electoral systems.

#9

In Eastern Europe, Stalin took a different approach than Mao did in China. He considered this area his rightful sphere of influence because his troops had taken it from Hitler, and an important buffer against possible invasion from the West.

#10

McCarthyism is the name given to the anticommunist witch hunts conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s. The House Un-American Activities Committee began its activities in 1938, and only finished in 1975.

#11

After the Truman Doctrine and McCarthyism, there was no question that communists and communist regimes were the enemy of Washington. However, it was not clear what the men running the US government would do with the growing wave of radical Third World movements that were not communist but opposed European imperialism.

#12

John F. Kennedy, like his father, understood the importance of political power. He spent a lot of money on Jack’s 1946 congressional race, and he told two reporters that politics was like war: it takes money to win.

#13

In India, Jack and his brother Bobby were lectured by Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, who favored the construction of a socialist society. He told the brothers that communism offered the people of the Third World something to die for.

#14

The US had no dedicated spy service, but it created a new intelligence agency very quickly. It used its vast wealth to fund it generously and hired young men who had served abroad during World War II to staff it.

#15

The OSS liked to hire elite corporate lawyers from the best schools, and Wisner fit the bill. He got into the intelligence service with the help of an old professor, and took to the life like a fish to water.

#16

The State Department was different from the hard-charging outfits Wisner worked for. But even compared to most diplomats at State, Jones was especially engaged and empathetic. He was called the master of the soft sell, which meant that he presented the official position of the US government as gently as possible.

#17

The CIA had two basic divisions: gathering intelligence through espionage, and covert action, which was the rough stuff. Frank Wisner was in charge of the gathering intelligence side, and he built a network of spies and stay-behind agents in Western Europe to rise to action if the Soviets ever did invade.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Francisca was born in 1926 in Indonesia. She was royalty, and her family were members of the upper class on Ambon, a quiet and comfortable little island surrounded by white sand and bright blue ocean.

#2

When the Japanese invaded in 1942, Francisca’s family were among the first in the country to welcome them as liberators. But as the war went on, and the Japanese occupation government treated Indonesians worse and worse, Francisca realized their true intentions.

#3

The new school was a bit of a shock for Francisca, as she was considered equal to the other students. She learned to speak Bahasa Indonesia, which is the Indonesian language. She had always excelled at language, but here she was starting from zero.

#4

Colonialism had long relied on the logic of Do as I say, not as I do. So while Europeans were extending education to their entire populations, and their intellectuals were debating the merits of socialism and Marxism, much of this was banned in the colonies.

#5

In 1950, Francisca eloped with Zain. They had to sneak off to Prague to get married, because Dutch authorities would have required her to get her father’s permission, and he was still withholding it for some reason or another.

#6

Zain began working at a newspaper in Indonesia in the early 1950s, and was assigned an interesting beat. He began writing about international affairs, and for someone who was concerned with Third World liberation, the early 1950s were an extremely interesting time.

#7

In Korea, the CIA tried out some of the same tools they had used in Eastern Europe. However, the operations were not only ineffective but probably morally reprehensible in the number of lives lost.