Terror and Taboo ― The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism

Terror and Taboo is about the mythology of terrorism; it is an exploration of the ways we talk about terrorism. It offers incontestable evidence to support the idea that we give power to terrorism by the way we write and talk about it. According to Zulaika and Douglass, we make terrorism worse by the way we represent it in the media and in everyday conversation. Through their examination of terrorism, they propose to remove the taboos surrounding terrorism. Terror and Taboo is full of examples to ground the authors premise, ranging from specific examples, such as tendency to talk more about where Timothy McVeigh shopped for weapons than about the international traffic in arms by legitimate nations, to more theoretical interpretations that will be familiar to readers of cultural studies books.

Joseba Zulaika is an Associate Professor in the Basque Studies Program at the University of Nevada. He is the author of Basque Violence. William Douglass is a Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Basque Studies at the University of Nevada.