Darren Byler's Terror Capitalism provides critical insights into one of the most important and contested topics in international human rights. Drawing on an extensive archive of firsthand research, Byler gives a rich and detailed look at the persecution and cultural genocide of the Uyghur. An indispensable resource for studies in human rights, surveillance, China, Muslims, Islamophobia, capitalism, and more. -- David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University
Spelling out the full spectrum of what dispossession means for Uyghurs, Darren Byler offers a fine balance between political passion and scholarship as well as an important self-reflexivity about the role of an ethnographer in a context full of violence and terror. There is so little on what Uyghurs are going through, and it is vital that this information be made public. Terror Capitalism is one of the few works that bring such complex understanding to the situation in Xinjiang. -- Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Remarkable ... compelling ... offers an important contribution for specialists and graduate students. -- Aidan Forth * Los Angeles Review of Books *
There are many reasons to recommend Terror Capitalism, and not least for the way it gives voice to so many different Uyghurs, a people often reduced either to an abstract entity or a lone voice of victimhood. -- Nick Holdstock * Times Literary Supplement *
Byler's pioneering work vividly conveys the suffering that individuals experience under the regime's policies in Xinjiang -- Roger Garside * Literary Review of Canada *
Some of the stories Byler's book recalls read like a scene straight out of Kafka's The Trial. . . . The author's attention to detail and commitment to thorough research is excellent. -- JP O'Malley * Globe and Mail *
Byler has written the definitive ethnography of the Uyghurs in the 2010s, a decade of increasing desperation. -- Chris Hann * Eurasian Geography and Economics *
Darren Byler's ethnography is an invaluable contribution, as he provides a rare micro, ground-level view of events and Uyghur social life in the past decade. His storytelling brilliantly plugs the reader into his characters' internal life and offers a remarkable insight into the Uyghur experience. He is also successful in his attempt to provide a refined, balanced and thorough scholarly analysis of the current crisis-with carefully chosen words and ethnographic vignettes. Byler's book is therefore a powerful tribute to his informants, Han or Uyghur, and to all those who suffer from Beijing's oppressive policies in the region. -- Vanessa Frangville * China Quarterly *
