But historical precedence and present evidence don’t encourage their point of view. Poverty, multi-front wars and extreme or exclusive ideologies can also end in revolutionary triumph or lasting influence, as with Republican France and possibly the Islamic Republic of Iran. The authors’ contention that ‘as the Soviet Union was to communism, so ISIL is to jihadism’ might be on the mark. However, before the Islamic State’s inherent contradictions confine it to the dustbin of history, there are likely miles and miles of grief to go. Before the revolutionary flame burns itself out, it can also burn away much in its path, and profoundly reshape the region and beyond.