The rise of the Islamic State (IS) has fundamentally altered the reality of the contemporary Middle East. Part radical jihadists and part revolutionary government, IS, in the space of eighteen months, has carved out a territorial domain comparable to that of Great Britain, with a population of over eight million people. Equally at home with cutting edge social media, while advocating a return to a more traditional Muslim society, it is rapidly transforming its domain into a twenty-first century reincarnation of a thirteenth century Islamic caliphate. In the process IS has morphed into a...