THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 99 marked by strong economic recovery and growth; massive and tragic score settling between certain interests (probably with military involvement) and the left; the growth of a kleptocratic military engaged in the active suppression of regional conflicts from Papua to Timor Leste to Aceh and in abusing human rights nationally; and the expansion of an administrative state that delivered improved social services that tremendously improved human welfare outcomes. In various ways questions about religion, democratic governance, regional autonomy, and corruption persist in today’s Indonesia—more than 25 years after the fall of Suharto and the country’s democratic rebirth in 1998. Revolusi refers to some of those subsequent events, but it delivers best in reminding us of how we got to the starting point of the modern Indonesian state in the middle of the last century, via an intense and bloody struggle, led mostly by young people, in the wake of a terrible world war. Indonesia as a unitary state still faces significant risks, but the last few decades offer some evidence of a national gift for learning, tolerance, adaptability, and peaceful progress. It remains to be seen how the recent election of President Prabowo, a key actor in the Suharto era who successfully rebranded himself as a populist in his campaign, might change this trajectory. Ambassador Walter North is a retired Foreign Service officer. Iran Through a Different Lens Mission Manifest: American Evangelicals and Iran in the Twentieth Century Matthew K. Shannon, Cornell University Press, 2024, $54.95/hardcover, e-book available, 330 pages. Reviewed by Alan Eyre Unremitting mutual animus has characterized U.S.-Iran bilateral relations since the 1979 Revolution. The U.S. labels Iran as destabilizing and malign, while Iran rejects the “rules-based global order” it sees as a velvet glove over a hegemonic U.S. fist. Although the hostage crisis was more than 45 years ago, at the popular level our collective American consciousness is still seared by images of burning American flags and blindfolded U.S. hostages surrounded by surging throngs of frenzied Iranians shouting, “Death to America.” Iran’s grievances against the U.S. include the 1941 Allied invasion, the 1953 coup against the nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, and our perfervid support for the shah, which, combined with huge increases in Iranian oil revenue, led to a massive buildup of the U.S. military and business in Iran. Matthew Shannon’s Mission Manifest gives the fuller “origin story” behind American involvement in Iran and is essential reading not just for those interested in Presbyterian missionary history in Iran but also for all interested in the complete story of U.S.-Iran relations. Revolusi delivers best in reminding us of how we got to the starting point of the modern Indonesian state, via an intense and bloody struggle, led mostly by young people, in the wake of a terrible world war. for many participants and observers, it was probably not a significant driver of events elsewhere. Indonesia’s existence as an independent, sovereign state was and is a miracle. Today, it is the world’s fourth most populated country, democratic, increasingly prosperous, and a major force for stability in Southeast Asia. Given the country’s colonial legacy; its poverty in 1945; its vast size; and its significant ethnic, linguistic, biologic, and religious diversity, such a promising outcome was not preordained. The book looks back at the origins and drivers of the anticolonial struggle and correctly focuses on some of the key issues and how they were managed, finessed or not. The founders of the new state tussled over the role of religion in the state, how to get buy-in to a unifying national language and other means of weaving far-flung disparate ethnolinguistic communities into the broader Indonesian project, growing an effective defense force, developing a capable state apparatus, and setting in motion an economic paradigm for development that could deliver for citizens. The book ably shows how many of the seeds of the detours, disappointments, successes, and ambiguity that have characterized Indonesia’s very mixed trajectory since independence were there from the start. This foundational perspective can help outsiders better grasp the dynamics that led to the meltdown of the Sukarno regime in 1965, which opened the way for the Suharto “development” era. That era was
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