They Will Have to Die Now

In this masterpiece of war journalism based on months on the frontlines, award-winning reporter James Verini describes the climactic battle in the struggle against the Islamic State through the eyes of fighters and the families that refused to abandon their homes. The battle was a long time coming. Mosul, and its ancient counterpart Nineveh, have a proud history as the birthplace of Western culture, but they have also been an epicentre of cruelty and violence, from the ancient Assyrians to the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.The Battle for Mosul was the first to show us the true shape of twenty-first century warfare, in which the distinction between military and civilian has collapsed and mobile phone towers are a strategic priority. As the government forces inch forward through narrow alleyways, co-ordinating their movements via WhatsApp, scanning for ISIS snipers and suicide car bombers using commercial drones, Verini shows how this viciously contested patch of earth came to represent a war for the soul of a country, its history and its future.

“'Verini's firsthand account of the Battle of Mosul is a thing of terrible beauty.'”

‘One of the strengths of Verini… is his eye for detail… A poignant and detailed profile, beautifully written, of people in war… They Will Have to Die Now is an exceptional study both of modern war and of the most significant battle in the war against Islamic State. I read each page with relish and gratitude, and on several occasions drummed my heels with delight at the sheer ludicrousness of the horror of it all.’

Times

‘A necessary book… Verini’s front-line reporting is exhilarating… He brings each scene to life and, crucially, knows when to absent himself from the story. Verini has a novelist’s eye for the telling detail’

Daily Telegraph

‘When war isn’t being loud and boring, most modern accounts agree, it’s being loud and surreal. Verini’s book is exceptionally rich in this vein…. An extraordinary portrait of domestic lives stewing in desperation and rage... They Will Have to Die Now entirely transcends its genre.'

-- Spectator

‘An eloquent, awesome account of the destruction of the Isis-held city of Mosul.’

-- Robert Fisk, Independent

‘Verini’s firsthand account of the Battle of Mosul is a thing of terrible beauty.’

-- Jonathan Franzen

‘This is such an important and deeply nuanced book. Verini paints absolutely convincing portraits of the Iraqi soldiers trying to take their broken country back, and in humanizing them, he joins the ranks of Liebling and Pyle and Gellhorn – American journalists able to embed so selflessly with soldiers, to listen first and theorize rarely, to tell a story as it happened.’

-- Dave Eggers, bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Circle

‘They Will Have to Die Now is the story of what happened after most Americans stopped paying attention to Iraq. It’s a small miracle that a writer as good as James Verini witnessed the Battle of Mosul. His book is erudite, humane, bleakly funny, and unbearably sad. It will take its place among the very best war writing of the past two decades.’

-- George Packer, author of Our Man and The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq

‘James Verini plunges you into the heart of the climactic battle of the Iraq War and won’t let you leave. He seems to be everywhere, gets to know everyone, vividly chronicles everything he sees and hears—and never once calls attention to himself. The weapons may be new—drones and iPads and executions on YouTube—but the blood and confusion and betrayal are as old as war itself. They Will Have To Die Now is an astonishment.’

-- Geoffrey C. Ward, co-author of The Vietnam War

‘They Will Have to Die Now is a vivid, captivating, compelling, and graphic account of the major battle against the Islamic State in Iraq, the Battle for Mosul—site of the Biblical Nineveh and capital of the province where I was privileged to serve in the first year of the war in Iraq. James Verini conveys brilliantly the often tragic ancient and modern history of Iraq, and he captures superbly the brutal reality of one of the most intense urban battles since World War II. In so doing, he describes the terrible hardships experienced by the Moslawis and both the worst and the best of mankind in war, contrasting the barbaric actions of the jihadists with the desires of those who tried to rescue and to rebuild—but who nonetheless had to inflict enormous damage on the city they sought to liberate.’

-- General David Petraeus

‘This is a stunning book, brave in its reporting and beautiful in its writing. It is funny and sad and seared into me, and I can’t recommend it highly enough, not just to people interested in the truth of a war but to anyone in search of the truth of humanity.’

-- David Finkel, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post and author of The Good Soldiers

‘James Verini’s book stands comparison with the pathbreaking works of modern war journalism that meld into great literature. One has to go back to the Vietnam War and Michael Herr’s Dispatches to find such a vivid, poignant, and historically grounded narrative of an appalling war; a war caused no little by the misdeeds, missteps, and malevolence of the myriad powers and forces that have tried to dominate the Middle East.’

-- Ali Allawi, former minister of finance, defense, and trade of Iraq

‘The definitive account of one of the most pivotal and bitter military campaigns of the modern era… This isn’t typical military history, though, but an eyewitness account of what happens to ordinary people who find themselves living on the battlefield, the compromises they must make to stay alive… This is war reporting at its very best.’

-- Scott Anderson, author of Lawrence in Arabia

‘Tough, smart, and vivid, this is a book that renders war and battle with the deft hand of a fine writer. It will haunt you, engage you, and stay with you.’

-- Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief

‘An urgent, scalding, hallucinatory work of war reportage, in the tradition of Michael Herr and Philip Gourevitch. His account…captures the horror, the nobility, and the sheer grinding absurdity of twenty-first-century warfare… A significant achievement.’

-- Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing, winner of the Orwell Prize

James Verini is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and National Geographic. He has also written for The New Yorker, the Atavist, and other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award and a George Polk Award.

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