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The author of the explosive Atlantic cover story \\u201cWhat ISIS Really Wants\\u201d has written the definitive, electrifying account of the strategy, psychology, and theology driving the Islamic State.

Tens of thousands of men and women have left comfortable, privileged lives to join the Islamic State and kill for it. To them, its violence is beautiful and holy, and the caliphate a fulfillment of prophecy and the only place on earth where they can live and die as Muslims.

The Way of the Strangers is an intimate journey into the minds of the Islamic State\\u2019s true believers. From the streets of Cairo to the mosques of London, Graeme Wood interviews supporters, recruiters, and sympathizers of the group. We meet an Egyptian tailor who once made bespoke suits for Paul Newman and now wants to live, finally, under Shariah; a Japanese convert who believes that the eradication of borders\\u2014one of the Islamic State\\u2019s proudest achievements\\u2014is a religious imperative; and a charming, garrulous Australian preacher who translates the group\\u2019s sermons and threats into English and is accused of recruiting for the organization. We also learn about a prodigy of Islamic rhetoric, now stripped of the citizenship of the nation of his birth and determined to see it drenched in blood. Wood speaks with non\\u2013Islamic State Muslim scholars and jihadists, and explores the group\\u2019s idiosyncratic, coherent approach to Islam.

The Islamic State is bent on murder and apocalypse, but its followers find meaning and fellowship in its utopian dream. Its first caliph, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, has declared that he is the sole legitimate authority for Muslims worldwide. The theology, law, and emotional appeal of the Islamic State are key to understanding it\\u2014and predicting what its followers will do next.

Through character study and analysis, Wood provides a clear-eyed look at a movement that has inspired so many people to abandon or uproot their families. Many seek death\\u2014and they will be the terror threat of the next decade, as they strike back against the countries fighting their caliphate. Just as Lawrence Wright\\u2019s The Looming Tower informed our understanding of Al Qaida, Graeme Wood\\u2019s The Way of the Strangers will shape how we see a new generation of terrorists.

Praise for The Way of the Strangers

\\u201cReaders are taken on a global journey to meet the frothing fans of ISIS. . . . Wood wants to know these people, to get in their skin, to understand how they see the world. Unlike most journalists writing about Islam today, there is no partisan axe to grind here, no hidden agenda to subtly advance.\\u201d \\u2014New Republic

\\u201cThe best way to defeat the Islamic State is to understand it. And to do that, the best place to start is [ The Way of the Strangers]. . . . A series of gripping, fascinating portraits. . . . Wood has the talented journalist\\u2019s skill for interview and observation. He\\u2019s an astute psychologist and a good writer to boot. . . . It\\u2019s a great read. But more importantly, Wood\\u2019s book reveals truths about ISIS that are hiding in plain sight\\u2014but that our leaders make themselves willfully ignorant of. They ought to read his book, too.\\u201d \\u2014The Week

\\u201c[Graeme Wood] shows, convincingly, that the stifling and abhorrent practices of the Islamic State are rooted in Islam itself\\u2014not mainstream Islam, but in scriptures and practices that have persisted for centuries. . . . The Islamic State, such as it is, is a dangerous place, and Wood\\u2019s book amounts to a tour around its far edges.\\u201d \\u2014Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book Review
Review
Praise for The Way of the Strangers

\\u201cReaders are taken on a global journey to meet the frothing fans of ISIS. . . . [Graeme] Wood wants to know these people, to get in their skin, to understand how they see the world. Unlike most journalists writing about Islam today, there is no partisan axe to grind here, no hidden agenda to subtly advance. . . . To these troubled men, Islam is not an opiate of the masses; it is a euphoric, reality-bending, and ultimately self-annihilating psychedelic.\\u201d \\u2014New Republic

\\u201c[Graeme Wood] shows, convincingly, that the stifling and abhorrent practices of the Islamic State are rooted in Islam itself\\u2014not mainstream Islam, but in scriptures and practices that have persisted for centuries. . . . The Islamic State, such as it is, is a dangerous place, and Wood\\u2019s book amounts to a tour around its far edges.\\u201d \\u2014Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book Review

\\u201cWorthy of Joseph Conrad . . . In a field where there has admittedly been little competition, [Wood\\u2019s] book ranks as the funniest yet written on Islamic State. As in many a British sitcom, the comedy mostly emerges from the disequilibrium between the scale of his characters\\u2019 pretensions and ambitions and the banality of their day-to-day lives. . . . Gripping, sobering and revelatory.\\u201d \\u2014New Statesman (UK)

\\u201cThe best way to defeat the Islamic State is to understand it. And to do that, the best place to start is [ The Way of the Strangers]. . . . A series of gripping, fascinating portraits. . . . Wood has the talented journalist\\u2019s skill for interview and observation. He\\u2019s an astute psychologist and a good writer to boot. . . . It\\u2019s a great read. But more importantly, Wood\\u2019s book reveals truths about ISIS that are hiding in plain sight\\u2014but that our leaders make themselves willfully ignorant of. They ought to read his book, too.\\u201d \\u2014The Week

\\u201cIndispensable and gripping . . . From Mosul to Melbourne, from Cairo to Tokyo, from London to Oslo, from Connecticut to California, Graeme Wood\\u2019s quest to understand the Islamic State is a round-the-world journey to the end of the night. As individuals, the men he encounters are misfits, even losers. But their millenarian Islamist ideology makes them the most dangerous people on the planet.\\u201d \\u2014Niall Ferguson, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, author of The War of the World

\\u201cOver the course of its short life, the Islamic State has inspired millions, thousands of whom have rallied to its cause in search of a glorious death. But why? Are its devotees nothing more than sadists and two-bit mafiosi for whom religion is a fig leaf and who will fade away in the face of military defeat? In this essential book, Graeme Wood draws on more than a decade of reporting to demolish these and other comforting deceptions. The Islamic State\\u2019s devotees are true believers indeed, and their nightmarish vision will haunt our world for decades to come, regardless of what happens on the battlefield.\\u201d \\u2014Reihan Salam, executive editor, National Review

\\u201cGraeme Wood is America\\u2019s foremost interpreter of ISIS as a world-historical phenomenon. In The Way of the Strangers, he has given us the definitive work to date on the origins, plans, and meaning of the world\\u2019s most dangerous terrorist organization. Wood is a fearless, relentlessly curious, and magnetically interesting writer who takes us on an intellectual and theological journey to the darkest places on the planet, yet he manages to do this without despairing for our collective future. This book is a triumph of journalism.\\u201d \\u2014Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief, The Atlantic

Praise for Graeme Wood\\u2019s \\u201cWhat ISIS Really Wants\\u201d

\\u201cAn intelligent and detailed account of the ideology that animates the Islamic State.\\u201d \\u2014Fareed Zakaria, CNN, author of The Post-American World

\\u201cOne of the most important essays this year.\\u201d \\u2014David Brooks, The New York Times, author of The Road to Character

\\u201cFascinating, terrifying, occasionally blackly humorous.\\u201d \\u2014Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature

\\u201cMr. Wood\\u2019s piece is bracing because it is fearless. . . . It is going to change the debate.\\u201d \\u2014Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, author of What I Saw at the Revolution

\\u201cA rare, genuine must-read . . . I felt challenged, even provoked, through it all.\\u201d \\u2014Shadi Hamid, the Brookings Institution, author of Islamic Exceptionalism
About the Author
Graeme Wood is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has written for The New Republic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many other publications. He was the 2014\\u20132015 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and he teaches in the political science department at Yale University.'