On Wednesday, President Trump ordered that all of the approximately 2,000 American troops in Syria be withdrawn within 30 days, tweeting in explanation, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency.” These books explore how the Islamic State (ISIS) gained power, the damage they have caused and why many were drawn to join them.

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BLACK FLAGS

The Rise of ISIS

By Joby Warrick

344 pages. Doubleday. (2015)

In this Pulitzer Prize winning book, Warrick, a reporter for The Washington Post, paints a portrait of ISIS and its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Warrick shows that the seed for ISIS was planted long before it became widely known in the early 2010s and also makes clear “the crucial role that American missteps and misjudgments would play in fueling his rise and the advance of the Islamic State,” according to former Times critic Michiko Kakutani. Warrick “has a gift for constructing narratives with a novelistic energy and detail,” she wrote.

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THE LAST GIRL

My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State

By Nadia Murad with Jenna Krajeski

306 pp. Tim Duggan Books. (2018)