Red Line

Praise

“A nonfiction thriller.” —The Washington Post

“Excellent.” —The Independent (London)

“[A] highly readable and well-sourced work, a bleak but real-life thriller.” —The Guardian

“A detailed look at an excruciating moment for Syria, the United States, and the world—the time in 2013 when the United States concluded that Syria’s government had used chemical weapons in its long-running civil war.” —Morning Edition, NPR

“[An] engrossing account of chemical warfare in the Syrian civil war. . . . [A] gripping investigation of the challenges of Middle East politics.” —Library Journal (starred review)
 
“Red Line can grip as tightly as any thriller.” —Hugh Hewitt, The Washington Post
 
“Red Line is a forensic examination of the moral culpability of the Assad government and its Russian backers . . . Warrick combines the novelist’s gift for storytelling with the journalist’s gift for hard research.” —The Tablet
 
“[An] electric tale.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“The virtue of Warrick’s book is that it provides a panoramic reconstruction of the [2013] chemical attack and its aftermath. We see it from the eyes of survivors, doctors, activists, disarmament experts, diplomats, and policymakers. The book cuts from scenes on the ground in Eastern Ghouta, to the U.N. inspectors in Damascus, to National Security Council meetings in the White House, telling the story with urgency and clarity.” —Newlines Magazine
 
“An unsettling look at the extraordinarily brutal civil war that has engulfed Syria since 2011. . . . Warrick delivers a vivid account.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“A valuable addition to the growing literature on the war in Syria. . . . The book includes . . . compelling accounts with characters ranging from UN weapons inspectors and Syrian doctors to Islamic State operatives planning their own chemical attacks. In Warrick’s hands, their experiences come alive.” —The National Interest
 
“Lively and easily accessible . . . [Red Line] contains powerful material that should serve as a warning to us all.” —The New Arab
 
“A meticulously reported, gripping story.” —LitHub

“[President Biden] may wish to read Joby Warrick’s Red Line. . . . [It] has important implications for countering proliferation.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Riveting. . . . Warrick’s vivid portraits of so many of the diverse individuals involved, from victims to American engineers and U.N. investigators, provide a devastating perspective on the civil war in Syria.” —The National Book Review

“The power of Warrick’s account derives from his exceptional ability to tell the Syrian disarmament story through the lives of individuals. . . . At the basic human level, Warrick lays bare two contrasting dimensions of the Syrian [chemical-weapons] story: resourcefulness and resilience—reflected in the brilliant solutions that the book’s protagonists, at the Syrian local level as much as in the U.S. government, developed to meet the [challenge]—but also the sheer suffering of those exposed to chemical attacks.” —The Nonproliferation Review