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State of Terror: The War Against ISIS
They have taken over a region the size of the United Kingdom, and sparked one of the great humanitarian crises of our time. Now, with coordinated attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian passenger plane, the Islamic State (ISIS) has declared war on the wider world, galvanizing new calls for an intensified global response.
The Pope, the King of Jordan, and other international leaders say that ISIS has triggered a "Third World War."
The Washington Post has spent a year tracking the political and military spread of ISIS-investigating its roots, and chronicling what life is really like for the people under its rule. Kevin Sullivan, a Senior Correspondent for The Washington Post, conducted a series of interviews, often in secret, with people who have fled the "Caliphate." Other correspondents, including Souad Mekhennet and Loveday Morris, spoke with those still inside. What he discovered is that, while world leaders watched, the Islamic State instituted a brutal, tiered society, in which the faithful are given control, in which women are in constant danger, and wherein dissent is met with swift and deadly retribution.
This is the inside story of how ISIS combined the bloodiest aspects of religion, terrorism and statehood into becoming a global threat.
The Pope, the King of Jordan, and other international leaders say that ISIS has triggered a "Third World War."
The Washington Post has spent a year tracking the political and military spread of ISIS-investigating its roots, and chronicling what life is really like for the people under its rule. Kevin Sullivan, a Senior Correspondent for The Washington Post, conducted a series of interviews, often in secret, with people who have fled the "Caliphate." Other correspondents, including Souad Mekhennet and Loveday Morris, spoke with those still inside. What he discovered is that, while world leaders watched, the Islamic State instituted a brutal, tiered society, in which the faithful are given control, in which women are in constant danger, and wherein dissent is met with swift and deadly retribution.
This is the inside story of how ISIS combined the bloodiest aspects of religion, terrorism and statehood into becoming a global threat.
147 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 22, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 15, 2016
This is a collection of articles rather than a book, which is not a bad thing in general as there are a few contained topics that flow well and give certain complete narratives in a journalistic style. The problem with it is that there are repetitions among the articles as if they were meant to be published separately which leads to many times repeating explanations and notes which gets a little boring if one goes through the books for a while rather than read every article again.
The Post has done the book mainly through interviews with people who are living in areas under the control of ISIS or who have fled recently in some articles or in interviews with experts in others. In that sense, the book is revealing and strong as it carries many voices from real people who have seen it first hand. While the book repeats, nearly in every article, that they cannot independently verify the statements for lack of access to ISIS controlled areas; they also talk about a lot of consistency among the statements they get and the consistency of those with the findings of other humanitarian and human rights organizations.
This is not a book that will tell you "all you should know" about ISIS, it is only a part that talks about specific issues about living under ISIS and how that affected certain aspects of people's lives and how those people feel about it. To know more about the emergence of ISIS and their history and development, other sources should be sought.
The other critique, or note, is that the book doesn't add much if the reader has been exposed to the news about Syria and Iraq with any level of regularity. The information provided are probably accurate but are certainly not ground breaking, very little I read in the book I haven't heard or read in the news media. It seems that this volume has been produced for an audience very removed from the daily realities of the Middle East and potentially only know that there is something called ISIS and that it is bad. In that case, this is an excellent book because it tells such audience that if the West is afraid of ISIS reaching them with terror attacks, it is already inflicting much worse pain and suffering on tens of thousands of people it "governs".
The Post has done the book mainly through interviews with people who are living in areas under the control of ISIS or who have fled recently in some articles or in interviews with experts in others. In that sense, the book is revealing and strong as it carries many voices from real people who have seen it first hand. While the book repeats, nearly in every article, that they cannot independently verify the statements for lack of access to ISIS controlled areas; they also talk about a lot of consistency among the statements they get and the consistency of those with the findings of other humanitarian and human rights organizations.
This is not a book that will tell you "all you should know" about ISIS, it is only a part that talks about specific issues about living under ISIS and how that affected certain aspects of people's lives and how those people feel about it. To know more about the emergence of ISIS and their history and development, other sources should be sought.
The other critique, or note, is that the book doesn't add much if the reader has been exposed to the news about Syria and Iraq with any level of regularity. The information provided are probably accurate but are certainly not ground breaking, very little I read in the book I haven't heard or read in the news media. It seems that this volume has been produced for an audience very removed from the daily realities of the Middle East and potentially only know that there is something called ISIS and that it is bad. In that case, this is an excellent book because it tells such audience that if the West is afraid of ISIS reaching them with terror attacks, it is already inflicting much worse pain and suffering on tens of thousands of people it "governs".
February 9, 2017
They have taken over a region the size of the United Kingdom, and sparked one of the great humanitarian crises of our time. Now, with coordinated attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian passenger plane, the Islamic State (ISIS) has declared war on the wider world, galvanizing new calls for an intensified global response.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews