ISIS: The State of Terror

Written by Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger

Narrated by Ray Porter

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. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Mar 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9780062396358

Jessica Stern

Jessica Stern is a leading expert on terrorism and trauma. Stern is the coauthor with J. M. Berger of ISIS: The State of Terror and the author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror and Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, selected by the New York Times as a notable book of the year. She has held fellowships awarded by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Erikson Institute, and the MacArthur Foundation. She was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, a national fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a fellow of the World Economic Forum. Stern is a research professor at Boston University. Prior to teaching, she worked in government, serving on President Clinton’s National Security Council Staff and as an analyst at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Reviews for ISIS

[Tabitha Reimer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ever wonder, "What's going on? This just seems so unreal. Why are they doing this?" We've become used to living in a less barbaric world than that which is depicted by groups such as Isis. For this reason, it is imperative that everyone read this book. Wake up. Worldwide Jihad is their goal, and without resistance that stems from knowledge, it is inevitable. Wake up! For the love of everything you hold dear, Wake UP!

[douboy50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book very interesting. I was seeking knowledge about ISIS, which this work provided. My one issue was that of course the names of the people involved with the organizations are Arabic, and the organizations are Arabic....so all the names are Arabic which made many of the relationships and changing relationships difficult to follow.Other than that, I thought it was a fine read overall.

[mumfie_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book is full of facts and names and ought to be fascinating, but I kept reading a chapter and not taking in any of it. It's uninteresting and it shouldn't be. So I gave up early on.

[branjohb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book will not keep you on the edge of your seat, if that is what you are seeking from the book. At times, the book kept me interested while at other times, it was drawn out and boring. It did accomplish my number one objective in reading the book - it gave me some insight on the genesis of ISIS and how it ties to the Islam religion and Muslims, in general. I was amazed reading about how ISIS is exploiting social media to get their ideas to a broader audience. The world has become one scary place!!!. I cannot say I am any more of an expert on ISIS than I was before reading the book, but it was a fair read. One and half thumbs up.