From the award-winning author of The Rise of Islamic State, the
essential story of the Middle East's disintegration
The Age of Jihad charts the turmoil of today's Middle East and the
devastating role the West has played in the region from 2001 to the
present. Beginning with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Cockburn
explores the vast geopolitical struggle that is the Sunni-Shia conflict,
a clash that shapes the war on terror, western military interventions,
the evolution of the insurgency, the civil wars in Yemen, Libya and
Syria, the Arab Spring, the fall of regional dictators, and the rise of
Islamic State.
As Cockburn shows in arresting detail, Islamic State did not explode
into existence in Syria in the wake of the Arab Spring, as conventional
wisdom would have it. The organization gestated over several years in
occupied Iraq, before growing to the point where it can threaten the
stability of the whole region. Cockburn was the first Western journalist
to warn of the dangers posed by Islamic State. His originality and
breadth of vision make The Age of Jihad the most in-depth analysis of
the regional crisis in the Middle East to date.