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In this intimate and innovative work, terror expert Joseba Zulaika examines drone warfare as manhunting carried out via satellite. Using Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas as his center of study, he interviews drone operators as well as resisters to the war economy of the region to expose the layers of fantasy on which counterterrorism and its self-sustaining logic are grounded.
Hellfire from Paradise Ranch exposes the terror and warfare of drone killings that dominate our modern military. It unveils the trauma drone operators experience, in part due to their visual intimacy with their victims, and explores the resistance to drone killings in the same apocalyptic Nevada desert where nuclear testing, pacifist militancy, and Shoshone tradition overlap.
Stunning and absorbing, Zulaika offers a richly detailed account of how we continue to manufacture, deconstruct, and perpetuate terror.
Joseba Zulaika received his licentiate in philosophy from the University of Deusto, Spain, in 1975, his M.A. in social anthropology from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, in 1977 and his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Princeton in 1982. He has taught at the University of the Basque Country, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at the University of Nevada, Reno, since 1990, where he is currently affiliated as a researcher with the Basque Studies program.
"Zulaika has written an ethnographic classic–a story of how drone war by hunting happened, what the consequences are for the innocent, and how it materializes a haunting at home. A must-read."—Laura Nader, Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Berkeley, author of Contrarian Anthropology: The Unwritten Rules of Academia
"Hellfire from Paradise Ranch details how the drone revolution has moved the politics of terror into an entirely new techno-political domain. We should all be grateful to Joseba Zuilaika for once again analyzing the politics of terror and seeing its revolutionary import — war always comes home. His account of drone warfare is required reading for anyone attempting to understand U.S. militarism in the 21st century."—Joseph Masco, University of Chicago
"'Compelling, subversive, powerful and original. A deeply impressive book by a brilliant scholar."—Richard English, author of Does Terrorism Work? A History
"This is the best book I ever read on the war on terror. In fact, in my view, it’s the only book you really need to understand the true nature of this monstrous, all-encompassing forever war which has been waged for nearly two decades now. In a superlative example of ethically responsible and analytically sophisticated activist scholarship, the author lays bare the twisted logic, perverse ethics, historical antecedents, and intimate human devastation of drone killing as counterterrorism. From the first page, I was moved and shaken; by the end, I understood. I couldn’t recommend this book enough."—Richard Jackson, University of Otago, New Zealand
"Having traveled through several of the regions where these drone strikes take place I found Zulaika's book powerful and indeed harrowing."—Mark LeVine, University of California, Irvine