"The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolu-tion centered on women's rights. And yet that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of. The Islamic State by then had swept across vast swaths of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From that unlikely showdown in the town of Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria as partner of the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting--house by house, street by street, town by town--the men who bought and sold women. Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Over hundreds of hours of interviews, bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace. In helping to cement the territorial defeat of ISIS, whose savagery toward women astounded the world, these women played a central role in neutralizing the threat the group posed worldwide. In the process they earned the respect--and significant military support--of U.S. Special Operations Forces. Rigorously reported and powerfully told, The Daughters of Kobani shines a light on a group of women intent on not only defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield but also changing women's lives in their corner of the Middle East and beyond"--

Award-winning broadcast journalist and public radio correspondent Michael Goldfarb has written the most stirring narrative to emerge from the Second Gulf War. It travels to the frontlines of battle and into the hearts of two men from different cultures whose intimate friendship and mutual passion for freedom can inspire us all. Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace is the author's tribute to Ahmad Shawkat, the Iraqi Kurd who served as Goldfarb's translator during "Major Combat Operations." Under an oppressive regime, Ahmad worked to promote freedom of expression. Goldfarb recounts his powerful yet all-too-brief relationship with Ahmad and introduces readers to the life of a true hero. Eighteen years old when the Ba'ath Party seized control in Iraq, Ahmad intimately and poetically describes his imprisonment and torture twice by Saddam Hussein's regime. Ahmad was banished from his hometown of Mosul for his political writings, and just as he began to taste freedom with the fall of Saddam and his large family's return home, Ahmad was murdered for publicly decrying Islamic terror in newspaper editorials that he began to publish. Ahmad's story of one heroic man will forever change our perception of what all Iraqis have suffered and continue to endure.