Shatter the nations : ISIS and the war for the Caliphate / Mike Giglio.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Prologue. Mosul, Iraq. February 2017 -- Part I. Beginnings -- The Martyr-New York City. January 2011 -- Leo-Damascus, Syria. March 2011 -- Border-Antakya, Turkey. July 2012 -- Revenge-Cairo, Egypt. August 2013 -- Part II. Terror -- Signs-Eastern Syria. November 2013 -- Abu Ayman-Antakya, Turkey. February 2014 -- Fear-Baghdad, Iraq. June 2014 -- Eagle-Sinjar, Iraq. August 2014 -- Arrivals-Istanbul, Turkey. September 2014 -- Frontier-Reyhanli, Turkey. October 2014 -- Beheading-Gaziantep, Turkey. December 2014 -- Gateway-Istanbul, Turkey. December 2014 -- Dinner-Antakya, Turkey. January 2015 -- Bodies and Bombs-Erbil, Iraq. February 2015 -- Passports-Istanbul, Turkey. May 2015 -- Artifacts-Reyhanli, Turkey. June 2015 -- Breaking Point-Sanliurfa, Turkey. August 2015 -- Death Comes to You-Sinjar, Iraq. November 2015 -- Defectors-Sanliurfa, Turkey. January 2016 -- Foreigners-Berlin, Germany. March 2016 -- Part III. Mosul -- Counter-Terror-Kalak, Iraq. Thirty miles east of Mosul. October 2016 -- Armies in the Night-Khazir, Iraq. Twenty-two miles east of Mosul. October 2016 -- Commandos-Al-Qosh, Iraq. Thirty miles north of Mosul. October 2016 -- "Move Slow, No Bleeding."-Topzawa, Iraq. Six miles east of Mosul. October 2016 -- Base Camp-Bazwaya, Iraq. Three miles east of Mosul. October 2016 -- Key West-Qayyarah, Iraq. Forty miles south of Mosul. October 2016 -- "Put Down Your White Flag."-Mosul, Iraq. Gogjali district. November 2016 -- Election Day, Mosul-Iraq. Saddam district. November 8, 2016 -- Comrades Outside-eastern Mosul, Iraq. November 2016 -- The President-Antakya, Turkey. January 2017 -- Drifting-Mosul, Iraq. Hay al-Noor district. February 2017 -- Bleeding-Mosul, Iraq. Tel al-Rayan district. February 2017 -- Casualties-Mosul, Iraq. May 2017 -- Epilogue: Escape-Istanbul, Turkey. September 2017.

The war against ISIS and the so-called caliphate it declared across Syria and Iraq was a battle to define not just the Middle East but the wider world. Growing from the aftermath of the U.S. war in Iraq and a brutal civil war in Syria, ISIS sought to usher in a new era of conflict as it launched terrorist attacks across Europe, while inflicting a savage extremism on the population in controlled. And the U.S. developed a new kind of war to stop it - one that that relied heavily on the sacrifices of local soldiers who fought on behalf of the American cause. This struggle came to a climax in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the crown jewel of the caliphate, in the deadliest urban combat the world had seen in a generation. Few journalists got as close to the war, and to protagonists on both sides of it, as Mike Giglio, who spent six years reporting on the rise and fall of the ISIS proto-state. He traveled along the Turkey-Syria border with the smugglers and operatives who worked in ISIS's criminal and financial networks, accompanied antiquities traders to visit stolen artifacts that helped to fund the ISIS war effort, sat with human traffickers at the heart of the migrant crisis, met with ISIS defectors as they tried to free their minds from its grip, and embedded with local soldiers on the front lines. Behind the drama on the battlefield, the suspense was in how much ISIS might change the world before its cities fell and how many of America's allies it could kill along the way. This is a chilling portrait of the destructive power of extremism, and of the tenacity and astonishing courage required to defeat it.