Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Critical response

Black Flags has been praised by journalists. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called it a "gripping new book" and wrote, "Mr. Warrick [...] has a gift for constructing narratives with a novelistic energy and detail, and in this volume, he creates the most revealing portrait yet laid out in a book of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the founding father of the organization that would become the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL)." He added, "for readers interested in the roots of the Islamic State and the evil genius of its godfather [...] there is no better book to begin with than Black Flags." Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times similarly described it as "invaluable for anyone struggling to understand the gruesome excesses and inexplicable appeal of ISIS," despite noting that it works better as a biography of al-Zarqawi than "explaining the subsequent 'rise of ISIS,' as the title promises." P. D. Smith of The Guardian said the book "has the narrative drive of a thriller" and observed, "From the mistakes made before and after the invasion of Iraq, to the continuing tragedy of Syria's civil war, Warrick's account is both compelling and authoritative."

Awards

The book received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The Pulitzer citation described the book as "a deeply reported book of remarkable clarity."