Book review: James Der Derian Virtuous War: Mapping the Military—Industrial—Media—Entertainment Network, 2nd edn London: Routledge, 2009. 330 pp. ISBN 978 0 415 77238 9 (hbk); ISBN 978 0 415 77239 6 (pbk)

Abstract

Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network is a travelogue of the contemporary American techno-war war machine -where we, the readers, get to ride pillion, eschewing our traditional distanced academic perspective. Virtuous War presents us with a virtual theory that offers a compelling critical encounter with contemporary war and peace and International Relations. It illustrates how America exists in a perpetual state of inter-war readiness. James Der Derian's embedded ethnographic research approach, while unconventional, does enable him/us to get right at the heart of the contemporary American war machine -where a more traditional distanced academic perspective perhaps could not have. Der Derian first published Virtuous War in 2001. The original was made up of chapters written during the period 1993 to 2000. This updated second edition includes four new chapters, written between 2000 and 2008, but excludes his 'original effort to elaborate a virtual theory for International Relations' (p. xviii). But these new chapters remain true to the chronology of the first edition and 'attempt to make what [he] salvaged of virtual theory worthy of the global events that preceded and followed 9/11' (p. xviii).Der Derian has described how for the first part of his road trip he travelled to Orlando, Florida to attend a conference on technology and simulation in war; he then travelled to the