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A review by aorth
Black Flags: The Rise of Isis by Joby Warrick
4.0
Read this if you want a brief chronological account of how Iraq and Syria ended up being swallowed up in violent conflict for the first decade and a half of the 21st century (so far). Major villains appearing are Saudi Arabia's Osama bin Laden, Jordan's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Iraq's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. By the end of this book you'll understand the link between all these men and the organizations they helped create.
I appreciated that, in the end, despite the apocalyptic title and cover imagery, Joby essentially attributes the recent rise of militant extremist Islam to a poor transition policy in the period after the US invasion of Iraq. Oh, and corruption. What's happening today in Iraq and Syria actually has very little to do with Islam. Other than a few hundred angry men with beards, there are definitely not large swathes of people who want to set up a seventh century theocracy spanning the globe.
Surely endless meddling and arbitrary line drawing by foreign powers in the century since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century doesn't help either. That's not covered here though! Perhaps start with [b:The Silk Roads: A New History of the World|25812847|The Silk Roads A New History of the World|Peter Frankopan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472636067s/25812847.jpg|45425898] if you have time and want to get lots of details, as well as tons of references.
I appreciated that, in the end, despite the apocalyptic title and cover imagery, Joby essentially attributes the recent rise of militant extremist Islam to a poor transition policy in the period after the US invasion of Iraq. Oh, and corruption. What's happening today in Iraq and Syria actually has very little to do with Islam. Other than a few hundred angry men with beards, there are definitely not large swathes of people who want to set up a seventh century theocracy spanning the globe.
Surely endless meddling and arbitrary line drawing by foreign powers in the century since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century doesn't help either. That's not covered here though! Perhaps start with [b:The Silk Roads: A New History of the World|25812847|The Silk Roads A New History of the World|Peter Frankopan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472636067s/25812847.jpg|45425898] if you have time and want to get lots of details, as well as tons of references.