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Title details for Black Flags by Joby Warrick - Available

Black Flags

The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick
Sunil Malhotra
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
WINNER OF THE 2016 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NONFICTION
“A Best Book of 2015”—The New York Times, The Washington Post, People Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Kansas City Star, and Kirkus Reviews
In a thrilling dramatic narrative, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.
 
   When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented character-driven account of the rise of ISIS, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq.
   Zarqawi began by directing terror attacks from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By falsely identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, U.S. officials inadvertently spurred like-minded radicals to rally to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings persisted until American and Jordanian intelligence discovered clues that led to a lethal airstrike on Zarqawi’s hideout in 2006.
   His movement, however, endured. First calling themselves al-Qaeda in Iraq, then Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, his followers sought refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, and as the U.S. largely stood by, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi’s dream of an ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate.
   Drawing on unique high-level access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Warrick weaves gripping, moment-by-moment operational details with the perspectives of diplomats and spies, generals and heads of state, many of whom foresaw a menace worse than al Qaeda and tried desperately to stop it. Black Flags is a brilliant and definitive history that reveals the long arc of today’s most dangerous extremist threat.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    September 29, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781101923566
      • File size: 390662 KB
      • Duration: 13:33:52

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Sunil Malhotra reads this dramatic audiobook, a Pulitzer Prize winner, with a reportorial style, deftly handling the tongue-twisting Middle Eastern names. This approach allows him to illuminate the foundations of the most dangerous terror organization on the planet--known in the West as ISIS. His measured delivery lets the story tell itself, with all its horrific facts. This audiobook closely follows the course of jihadist terror since 9/11, focusing on the past five years. The listener comes away with the ISIS origins story (bombings, beheadings, and betrayals) leavened with fascinating profiles of its prime movers--terrorists like Abu Mussab al Zarqawi and Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi; regional power brokers like Jordan's King Abdullah II and Syria's Bahsar al-Assad; and important Americans like CIA operative Nada Bakos and diplomat Robert S. Ford. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 31, 2015
      Pulitzer-winner Warrick (The Triple Agent) examines the origins of ISIS in this incisive, horrifying, and eminently readable work. Though the group was officially founded in 2006, Warrick traces its roots back to the recruitment of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by al-Qaeda in 1999. Warrick follows Zarqawi’s unlikely rise from lowly Jordanian street thug to Afghan mujahideen, to brilliant strategist and charismatic leader. With surgical precision, the author details how a perfect storm of circumstances—Zarqawi’s friendship with a noted radical Muslim scholar who was in prison with him, the king of Jordan’s sudden death and his son’s reluctant acceptance of the crown, and, most notably and disastrously, the U.S. occupation of Iraq—led to Zarqawi’s ascent. Readers trying to keep track of the heads of state, CIA operatives, tribal leaders, clerics, and diplomats will be glad for the list of principal characters in the book’s front matter, but they’ll rarely need to consult it, thanks to Warrick’s firm grasp and skillful explanation of the complicated subject matter. This is an eye-opening read for general audiences seeking to learn more about the current crisis in the Middle East. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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