This book is the product of a 17 year project since 1987, devoted to understanding linkages between deadly conflict, terrorism and development, by viewing them through the lens of Sri Lanka's post-independence history, from 1948 to 1988.

The reference to `Paradise' is to the Sri Lanka of remarkable stability and promise in the early years of independence in 1948, with extraordinarily good preconditions for a peaceful development scenario. How this paradise failed to realize its potential and produced one of the most violent and protracted internal wars in the world, is the story of the book, narrated through 5 parts and 22 chapters. The wars are by the migrant Tamils concentrated in the north and east (Jaffna province) for a separate Tamil Eelam or Tamil State, waged since 1983 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the tiny State of Sri Lanka.

The linkages between deadly conflict, terrorism and development in Sri Lanka; whether Sri Lanka was a development `Success Story'; Sri Lanka's United Front Government's attempts to cope with violent insurrections and shortcomings of its Marxist development model; the failure of its `open economy' development model and the strengthening of presidential authority to prevent conflict and terrorism from escalating out of control; and finally, deadly conflict and terrorism are not only predictable, but preventable-constitute the broad themes, in this order, of the 5 chapters each in parts 1 and 2, 3 chapters in part 3, 6 in part 4, and 3 in part 5.