What is Robin Wagner-Pacifici reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Gil and Frank Mustin Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College and author of The Art of Surrender: Decomposing Sovereignty at Conflict's End.

Her entry opens:

I'm always a little embarrassed when people ask me what I'm reading, because inevitably I'm reading books that are rather dark and, potentially, depressing. But partly out of occupational necessity and partly out of a best-left-unanalyzed personal predilection, I do tend to gravitate toward books about violent conflict. So these days, as I'm trying to understand changes in ideas about national defense, I'm reading several books that attempt to understand war and its consequences.

Read on to find out which books fit that bill, and to learn about the 20th century American literature classic Wagner-Pacifici read in a "state of exhausting energy."

Visit the University of Chicago Press website to learn more about The Art of Surrender.

The Page 99 Test: The Art of Surrender.

Writers Read: Robin Wagner-Pacifici.

--Marshal Zeringue