ISIS: The State of Terror

by Jessica Stern, J. M. Berger

Overview

The Islamic State, known as ISIS, exploded into the public eye in 2014 with startling speed and shocking brutality. It has captured the imagination of the global jihadist movement, attracting recruits in unprecedented numbers and wreaking bloody destruction with a sadistic glee that has alienated even the hardcore terrorists of its parent organization, al Qaeda.

Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, two of America’s leading experts on terrorism, dissect the new model for violent extremism that ISIS has leveraged into an empire of death in Iraq and Syria, and an international network that is rapidly expanding in the Middle East, North Africa and around the world.

ISIS: The State of Terror traces the ideological innovations that the group deploys to recruit unprecedented numbers of Westerners, the composition of its infamous snuff videos, and the technological tools it exploits on social media to broadcast its atrocities, and its recruiting pitch to the world, including its success at attracting thousands of Western adherents. The authors examine ISIS’s predatory abuse of women and children and its use of horror to manipulate world leaders and its own adherents as it builds its twisted society. The authors offer a much-needed perspective on how world leaders should prioritize and respond to ISIS’s deliberate and insidious provocations. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062395559
Publisher:	Ecco Press
Publication date:	02/28/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	211,707
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jessica Stern is a research professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and a Fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard’s School of Public Health. She served on the Clinton administration’s National Security Council Staff. She is the author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror; Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year); and The Ultimate Terrorists. 

J. M. Berger is a nonresident fellow with the Brookings Institution and the author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, a critically acclaimed history of the American jihadist movement. He is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy magazine and his website, Intelwire.com, has published thousands of declassified documents on the September 11 attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Table of Contents

Glossary ix

Timeline xv

A Note on Sourcing xxiii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda in Iraq 13

Chapter 2 The Rise of ISIS 33

Chapter 3 From Vanguard to Smart Mob 53

Chapter 4 The Foreign Fighters 75

Chapter 5 The Message 101

Chapter 6 Jihad Goes Social 127

Chapter 7 The Electronic Brigades 147

Chapter 8 The AQ-ISIS War 177

Chapter 9 ISIS'S Psychological Warfare 199

Chapter 10 The Coming Final Battle? 219

Chapter 11 The State of Terror 233

Appendix 257

Afterword 281

Acknowledgments 291

Notes 297

Index 383

Editorial Reviews

ISIS: The State of Terror is a timely and important history of a movement that now defines the 21st century.

Sam Kiley

A penetrating analysis . . . The book provides important context for an evolving organization and proto-state that is attempting to rewrite the jihadi playbook.

Aaron Zelin

ISIS emerged in territory occupied by American soldiers, governed by dictatorial regimes, and fought over by sectarian extremists. Stern and Berger provide context for understanding ISIS’s past and considering how its media model may affect future extremist movements.

Kecia Ali

Stern and Berger pull back the curtain to expose facts and myths about the violent Salafi apocalyptic cult calling itself the Islamic State. A must-read.

Mike Walker

The first serious book to analyze the rise of ISIS . . . Stern and Berger write clearly and persuasively and marshal impressive primary research from ISIS’s prodigious propaganda to help explain how ISIS became the dominant jihadi group today. It’s a terrific and important read.

Peter Bergen

A timely and urgent book that is essential reading for analysts and policy makers alike. In what is already a cornerstone contribution, Stern and Berger offer the kind of cold-blood analysis so desperately needed on the poorly understood phenomenon that is the so-called Islamic state.

John Horgan

By far the most important contribution yet to our understanding of an organization that remains cloaked in mystery and misunderstanding . . . A brisk, readable, and eye-opening account of ISIS’s past, present, and future. This is a book every American should read.

Reza Aslan

This book should be required reading for every politician and policymaker.

Washington Post