Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State - Softcover

Andrew Hosken is one of the BBC’s most experienced correspondents. Since joining Radio 4 in 1997, he has reported for the flagship current affairs programme, Today, as well as The World Tonight, From Our Own Correspondent, and the BBC World Service. He reported on the 9/11 attacks from New York and on the 7/7 attacks from London. Over the course of his career he has covered numerous Middle-Eastern conflicts and their aftermaths, including the Arab Spring, the fall of Gaddafi, and the rise of the Islamic State. In 2003, he won the One World Media Award for his series on Algerian terrorism.

"An analytical and lucid history of ISIS. Veteran BBC correspondent Andrew Hosken ably chronicles and thoroughly documents the rise of ISIS and its leaders as well as explaining how the group managed, in a few short months, to threaten everything Americans and others fought and paid dearly to establish in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.”
The Christian Science Monitor

"Hosken offers extensive and easily understood historical context to the rise of the self-anointed Islamic State, from the death of the prophet Mohammad to the present day... Hosken presents a fair history of the group and the political climate that allowed it to rise... For Hosken, it is clear the Islamic State veils murderous motives behind the auspices of religion. It's a bloody, violent tale, told here with compassion and a quest for understanding. Hosken explores these historical roots with depth and clarity; readers will come to understand a more focused version of what motivates the Islamic State."
Publishers Weekly

"Hosken's book provides a valuable service by giving a vivid account of what it is really like to live under one of the most repressive regimes of the modern age."
The Mail on Sunday

"It is imperative we understand the background and mentality of IS, ISIL, Daesh or whatever you want to call it. Andrew Hosken’s Empire of Fear is a very good place to start since it is highly informed and tells the story from obscure beginnings to the present, with some surprising discoveries on the way."
The London Evening Standard

"A tremendously useful, insightful study of the frightening spread of a culture of death. Hosken does an excellent job of sorting out the American reaction, the failure of the Iraqi leadership in the form of Nouri al-Maliki and others, and how IS has becomes the richest terrorist group in the world."
Kirkus Reviews, (Starred)

"Of all the recent crop of books about the Islamic State, this is the best. It is well-written and superbly researched by someone who knows his subject intimately; if you want an authoritative, well-researched but above all readable account of this foul but for many all too appealing organization, look no further Empire of Fear is that book."
Frank Ledwidge, author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood

"Andy Hosken is a brilliant investigative reporter with an unerring eye for a story. The rise of the Islamic State is an event as seismic as it is widely misunderstood, and Empire of Fear is an essential contribution to fathoming the truth of what is currently happening in the Middle East."
Tom Holland, author of Persian Fire and In the Shadow of the Sword