ISIS and the Caliphate

A review essay covering books by 1) Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: the state of terror (2015), 2) Patrick Cockburn, The rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the new Sunni revolution (2015), 3) David Kilcullen, Blood year: Islamic State and the failures of the War on Terror (2016), 4) Jay Sekulow with Jordan Sekulow, Robert W. Ash and David French, The rise of ISIS: a threat we can't ignore (2014), 5) Reza Pankhurst, The inevitable Caliphate? A history of the struggle for global Islamic union, 1924 to the present (2013) and 6) Jean-Pierre Filiu, From deep state to Islamic state: The Arab counter-revolution and its jihadi legacy (2015).