Thanks for another Warring Arocks podcast. I'm joined here by David Ignatius,

columnist at the Washington Post, and author of nine novels, the most recent, being the director.

Another one's in the hopper, but we're not going to talk about that one yet. Maybe we'll get him to talk about it during the podcast. Maybe not. And we have Will McCants, the director of the U.S. and the Islamic World program at the Brookings Institution.

And we're here to talk about Will's new book,

which we've all been really excited about ISIS

apocalypse, the history, strategy, and doomsday vision of the Islamic State.

I have to say, well, that is a pretty good attention grab or title.

You can thank my editors.

Yeah, just take credit for it.

So thank you both for joining us. And I know, you know, I know David that you're a really big fan of the book and you

in particular to Will's book and what about it appealed to you so much?

Like everyone who follows the Middle East

I have been trying to find ways to understand, think about the rise of the group I call ISIS.

We'll have to agree on a common definition here.

And it's difficult because to so many policy makers, indeed it sometimes seems even to

US intelligence community, it just leaped as if fully formed into people's consciousness in the summer of 2014 when it swept through muscle.

But of course it had complicated and important history before that and

Will's book is the best way I found to begin to understand that, where this group came

from. Some of the things I'd love to ask Will to talk that's prehistory of what its DNA is what those strands of DNA are and how they shape

its actions so perhaps as we get into our conversation I'll focus on some of the things

in this book that I think readers should be most interested in.

Great.

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